Woman accused of stealing $23M from Cisco bragged about her success on Classmates.com
I made it, and I made it big!
By Brad Reese on Thu, 10/15/09 - 2:24am.
28-year-old Jennifer Leigh Harmon Easevoli bragged on Classmates.com:
"For those of you who knew me and doubted me - I made it, and I made it big.
"I am bigger and better than you thought I could be.
"I am more successful than I could have dreamed and I have had a great time all the while."
Unfortunately for Easevoli, the devil was in the details of how she made it, and made it big.
She was arrested in Tucson, Arizona on September 28th and charged with stealing $23 million from Cisco in a classic scam to defraud Cisco's SMARTnet program.
An investigation by the FBI, the Internal Revenue Service and the U.S. Postal Inspection Service determined Easevoli used dozens of fake names and fictitious companies to obtain replacement parts from Cisco. The parts were shipped to private mailboxes at UPS stores in eight states (the indictment says she used more than 21 fake company names and 80 fake personal names to obtain those mailboxes). Authorities allege Easevoli submitted fraudulent claims for replacement parts between January 2003 and July 2005 and then sold the parts to others, depositing the proceeds into a Synergy Communications Corp. bank account (she was the vice president of Synergy).
Easevoli was charged with conspiracy to commit mail fraud, aiding and abetting mail fraud and conspiracy to commit money laundering. Conspiracy to commit mail fraud and aiding and abetting mail fraud carries a maximum penalty of up to 20 years in prison and a fine of up to $250,000. Conspiracy to commit money laundering carries a maximum penalty of up to 20 years in prison and a fine of up to $500,000, or twice the value of the property involved in the transaction, whichever is greater.
Arrested in Tucson along with Easevoli and charged with the same crimes was her husband, 33-year-old Mario Easevoli, the founder and president of Synergy Communications Corp.
A third man charged with the same crimes, 33-year-old Jason Allan Conway, is still at large.
Related story:
Two Arrested In $23 Million Fraud Scheme
What's your take, did Jennifer Leigh Harmon Easevoli make it bigger and better than you thought she could?
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Woman who "stole" $23M from Cisco???
Don't you think the headline is a tad bit libelous, in the absence of a criminal conviction, guilty plea before a court or a civil judgement? How about throwing in words like "alleged" or "accused of" or "suspected of"?
While I enjoy the story, let's be fair and note that Ms. Easevoli, et al. hasn't been convicted of anything. An accusation might allude to criminal activity, but it is in no way indicative of culpability. Ms. Easevoli, however vile, deserves her constitutional right to due process. Even alleged murderers, child rapists and terror suspects do.
Anyways, on topic, how about (former) executives who actually stole $$ from Cisco and were convicted before the courts? There are several, actually.
Either way, even if these allegations are found to be true or false, this reflects poorly on Cisco. It shows that Cisco is completely and utterly irresponsible, espeically when it comes to the handling of their fiscal expenditures. Blaming this on outside "perps" is not something the shareholders will buy into.
Best,
You never miss an
You never miss an opportunity to take a gratuitous swipe at Cisco. Do you blame rape victims for being assaulted too? When someone calls to say their network is down and their business is suffering, do you want the vendor to respond with help or with some sort of bureaucratic dance while they check to see if all the paperwork is in order? If your answer is anything other than immediate help, then you have never been on the customer end of that phone call. Go back to being a suit who poses as a renegade.
Touché
And thank-goodness we have Cisco cheerleaders like you and your vacuous ilk.
If you think legitimate criticisms are akin to "gratuitous swipes", then you, kind sir, have a lot to learn about critical thinking.
Public corporations are duty bound to spend money wisely, cautiously and responsibly. They owe it to their shareholders.
I guess when 9 out of 10 people feel the same way as I do, then it speaks volumes about.... ah, never mind.... we've been down thus path before.
Best,
Nine out of ten people feel
Nine out of ten people feel that "Cisco is completely and utterly irresponsible"? Can you post a link to that poll data? No, I didn't think so. How can you expect your criticisms to be taken seriously when you make up stuff like that?
What "legitimate criticisms" did you actually level? Cisco is [allegedly] defrauded and you blame Cisco for the crime. This is classic blame-the-victim mentality ("No wonder she got raped; look how she dresses.")
Do you have any idea how break-fix services organizations work or what their missions are? Let me put this in terms that a bean counter should be able to understand: An accident victim is wheeled into an emergency room hemorrhaging blood. The first priority of the medical staff is not to go through the victim’s pockets looking for an insurance card or birth certificate, but to stop the bleeding and stabilize the patient . Hospital administrators can deal with paperwork later. The mission of a break-fix services organization (TAC) is to restore service to a customer’s network as quickly as possible. This can include lenient policies with regard to shipping out replacement gear, since TAC’s assumption is that the customer actually needs help.
It is possible for unscrupulous types to take advantage of lenient replacement policies; that’s why there are reviews and audits of the transactions *after* the customer’s network is stabilized. Making it more difficult for a customer to deal with TAC in a network-down situation could have a very serious detrimental effect on future sales, so some vendors accept the business risk associated with fraud and pursue those matters after the fact. Shareholders win by not taking a hit in revenue and legit customers win by having network service restored ASAP.
great...more juniper marketing engineers
Guess they pay them by the hour to troll the blogs and inserting dumb comments. Being customer focused didn't used to be a crime. I guess working for a vendor, not in the real world of profit and loss on network availability, apparently means you know nothing about that.
There was a gentleman that due to a payroll error collected un-earned pay for years. He's a crook, end of story. Just like them (allegedly).
Re: Liable
Re: Liable Comment
0 Up Down
By Anon (not verified) on Sun, 11/22/2009 - 8:39pm.
Do you know these people or something? I found your post very unusual. To quote "While I enjoy the story, let's be fair and note that Ms. Easevoli, et al. hasn't been convicted of anything". This is true, but you have to be very aware of the fact that they are being charged for this. This isn't something where they just randomly gathering some people off the streets and said hey, let's charge them so the newspapers can get some headlines. This is an investigation that was run by multiple federal agencies to zero in on a huge fraud operation. How you could sit there and say that it is Cisco's fault for being irresponsible is beyond me, when it took multiple organizations to discover this. Obviously Cisco caught on to the fraud. That's why the cops got involved. But, I guess if your pals with them, your comments would make more sense. Anywho, if they are guilty, I hope they throw the book at all of them. If not (wink, wink) then may the force be with them. Here's to great friends!! :)
How negligent can Cisco be?
Cisco always gives the benefit of the doubt to the SmartNet customer and this is commendable. However, after millions and millions of dollars of losses, don't you think that Cisco would begin an internal investigation to find out why certain customers have so many claims? I'm not excusing those who who commit fraud, but I am wondering how one of the worlds largest corporations could be so stupid.
Next, watch for Cisco to use this situation to besmirch the general reputation of the secondary market resellers. Cisco persistently and deliberately lumps legal activities (i.e. selling good used Cisco equipment) with obviously illegal activities (i.e. counterfeiting, fraud, etc). Cisco probably fears the high-quality used dealers as much as any other competitor and they're getting increasingly aggressive in their tactics.
If end users saw my prices compared to new-in-box Cisco prices, they can see why Cisco is so scared.
If end users saw where you
If end users saw where you got your new-in-box "Cisco" from, they'll be even more scared.
I noticed that you're not man enough to identify yourself
The person has the audacity to accuse me of a federal crime, but he's not man enough to identify himself publicly. It's almost like he works for a department that is tasked with protection of a brand. Hmmmmm.
Let me say again for record. Counterfeits are illegal. They're also unreliable. No decent reseller, authorized or not, wants anything to do with counterfeit. It hurts end users and it also slowly destroys the legitimate markets.
On the other hand, well-tested, genuine and used Cisco hardware is of great benefit to all, even Cisco. For that matter, Cisco themselves sells good used hardware! Used dealers help "fly the flag" for Cisco. Used dealers create a vibrant secondary market so that customers with budget issues can still have reliable, high quality equipment. Used dealers also sustain "investment protection" in original Cisco hardware.
End users who have unlimited IT budgets should always buy new Cisco hardware. After all, somebody has to buy it new so that we can eventually sell it used!
Umm, it's not all about "you" or your kind.
How about saying if people buy new, Cisco can continue to develop market leading technologies that benefit the greater networking / connected world. Instead, you write that someone buys new so you can resell it.
It's not all about you buddy.
I'd rather purchase used hardware directly from Cisco, with their warranty and testing practices then another small company that uses their own tests, in that they have no idea the MTBF of parts as they weren't the ones to build the system.
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