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Former Computer CEO Pleads Guilty to Multimillion-Dollar Fraud in Middle of Trial
LEV L. DASSIN, the Acting United States Attorney for
the Southern District of New York announced that ERIC SKYS, the
former Chairman, President, and CEO of Kaiser Himmel Corporation,
based in Rockwood, Pennsylvania, pleaded guilty today after two
days of a jury trial, to all five counts of an Indictment
charging him with securities fraud, wire fraud and bank fraud.
SKYS' plea was accepted by United States District Judge WILLIAM
H. PAULEY III, who presided over the trial. Judge PAULEY also
denied SKYS' application to be released on bail.
According to the evidence at trial and SKYS' guilty
plea allocution today:
SKYS engaged in a scheme to defraud Citibank, N.A.
("Citibank") of more than $80 million. Specifically, beginning
in August 2007, SKYS attempted to obtain a loan from Citibank in
exchange for pledging millions of shares of Sprint Nextel
Corporation stock that SKYS claimed to own. As SKYS admitted
during his guilty plea, he owned no such stock, and he had forged
the documents that he submitted to Citibank that purported to
evidence his ownership of the shares.
Counts One through Four of the Indictment, to which
SKYS pleaded guilty, charged him with securities fraud and wire
fraud and each carries a maximum sentence of twenty years in
prison. Count Five charged SKYS with bank fraud and carries a
maximum sentence of thirty years in prison. He is scheduled to
be sentenced by Judge PAULEY on November 6, 2009, at noon.
SKYS, 26, who has been detained since his arrest on May
15, 2008, formerly resided in Somerset, Pennsylvania.
Mr. DASSIN praised the investigative work of the
Federal Bureau of Investigation and thanked the Pennsylvania
State Police and United States Air Force Office of Special Investigations for their assistance in this case.
Assistant United States Attorneys WILLIAM J. STELLMACH
and MARIA E. DOUVAS are in charge of the prosecution.
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