Faced with a crisis, the person of character depends on oneself. Integrity is the cornerstone of our business. We will conduct our affairs in a manner consistent with the highest ethical standards. To meet this commitment, we will: Engage in fair and honest business practices. Show respect for each other, and our consumers, customers, suppliers, shareholders and the communities in which we operate. Communicate in an honest, factual, and accurate manner. Fortunately, most individuals in business are ethical. Their actions are both legal and responsible, and they consider the organization’s interest in their decision making. However, in some situations public officials, business executives, and respected leaders act unethically. We are all embarrassed by the events that make The Journal read like the Police Gazette.

Tom Taylor’s job at the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) has changed. He used to pack a .357 magnum; now he wields a No. 2 pencil. Tom Taylor has been an FBI agent for a while, at the age of 37, he started off as a forensic accountant, someone who sniffs through company books to ferret out white-collar crime. Demand for this service has surged in the past few years. In one recent year, a recruiter for San Diego’s Robert Half International, a headhunting firm, had request for more than 1,000 such snoops. Qualifications: a CPA with FBI, IRS or similar government experience. Interestingly, despite its macho image, the FBI has long hired mostly accountants and lawyers as agents.

Wherever you make a career—whether in accounting, marketing, management, finance, government, or elsewhere—your behavior and actions will affect other people and organizations. The standards of conduct by which one’s actions are judged as right or wrong, honest or dishonest, fair or not fair, are ethics. Imagine trying to carry on a business, perform an audit, or invest money if you could not depend on the individuals you deal with to be honest. If managers, customers, investors, co-workers, and creditors all consistently lied, effective communication and economic activity would be impossible. Information would have no credibility.

Corporate fraud continues to be one of the FBI’s highest criminal priorities. The majority of the corporate fraud cases pursued by the FBI involve accounting schemes designed to deceive investors, auditors, and analysts about the true financial condition of a corporation or business entity. Through the manipulation of financial data, the share price, or other valuation measurements of a corporation, financial performance may remain artificially inflated based on fictitious performance indicators provided to the investing public. The FBI corporate fraud investigations primarily focus on the following activities:

Falsification of financial information of public and private corporations, including: False accounting entries and or misrepresentation of financial condition; fraudulent trades designed to inflate profit or hide losses; and illicit transactions designed to evade regulatory oversight.

Self-dealing by corporate insiders, including: insider trading (trading based on material, non-public information) including, but not limited to: Corporate insiders leaking proprietary information; attorneys involved in merger and acquisition negotiations leaking information; matching firms facilitating information leaks; traders profiting or avoiding losses through trading; and payoffs or bribes in exchange for leaked information. Other cases involve, kickbacks; misuse of corporate property for personal gain; and individual tax violations related to self-dealing.

Obstruction of justice designed to conceal any of the above-noted types of criminal conduct, particularly when the obstruction impedes the inquired of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), other regulatory agencies and or law enforcement agencies.

In addition to significant financial losses to investors, corporate fraud has the potential to cause immeasurable damage to the U.S. economy and investor confidence. However, no one is above the law, no matter what rank or badge a person might hold. Corruption by those entrusted to enforce the law strikes at the heart of our criminal justice system and it will not be tolerated. When a law enforcement officer violates his or her oath and the public’s trust by breaking the law, he or she must be held accountable.

In this case, a 24-year veteran of the FBI, Robert Lustyik Jr., age 52, of Sleepy Hollow, New York, pleaded guilty on 30 September 2014, to an 11-count indictment charging him with conspiracy, eight counts of honest services wire fraud, obstruction of grand jury proceeding, and obstruction of an agency proceeding. A childhood friend of Agent Lustyik, Johannes Thaler, age 51, of New Fairfield, Connecticut, pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit bribery, obstruction of a grand jury proceeding and obstruction of an agency proceeding, and was sentenced to 13 months in prision. Michael L. Taylor, age 54, of Harvard, Massachusettes, was sentenced to 24 months in prison. Agent Robert Lustyki was sentenced to ten years in prison for Bribery and Obstruction Scheme, and was ordered to forfeit $70,000.00 for soliciting and accepting bribes to obstruct a federal grand jury.

Agent Lustyik and Agent Thaler both pleaded guilty for their involvement in a similar bribery scheme in the Southern District of New York. Agent Thaler was sentences to 30 months in prison in that case, and will serve two sentences consecutively. Agent Lustyik….

According to court documents, from October 2011 to September 2012, Robert Lustyik and Johannes Thaler conspired to uses agent Lustyik’s official position as an FBI counterintelligence special agent to obstruct criminal investigation into Businessman Michael L. Taylor, who owned and operated American International Security Corporation. Michael L. Taylor was under investigation for allegedly paying kickbacks to obtain a series of contracts from the Department of Defense worth approximately $54 million. Michael L. Taylor promised agents Lustyik and Thaler that, in exchange for their help, he would provide the cash and multimillion dollar business contracts. In an email message, Michael L. Taylor told the two men, “I’ll make you guys more money than you can believe, provided they don’t think I’m a bad guy and put me in jail.”

According to court documents, Agent Lustyik attemed to obstruct the investigation into Michael L. Taylor by identifying Michael Taylor as an official FBI confidential source in an effort to persuade the FBI, the Justice Department, and the prosecutors and law enforcement agents in Utah that Michael Taylor’s usefulness to the government outweighed the government’s interest in prosecuting him. Indeed, Agent Lustyik emphasized that indicting Michael Taylor would threaten the nation’s security. Agent Lustyik also sought to take steps to directly intervene in the investigation by interviewing key witnesses.

According to court documents, the defendants boasted about the success of their scheme. In one email message, Agent Lustyik wrote to Michael Taylor, “The rate this is going. I will be indicted way before u ever are!!” Agent Lustyik wrote separately to Agent Thaler, “I can leave [the FBI] in June. But I’m afraid to if [Taylor] gets indicted n I’m not an agent I’m no help. Has he mentioned giving me-u a salary?”

Michael Taylor admitted at his plea hearing that, as part of this conspiracy, he offered Agent Lustyik a six-figure salary and a share of the proceeds from the various multi-million dollar business deals he was pursuing. Acknowledging this, Agent Lustyiik wrote to Michael Taylor, “Let’s just get Utah over with and get stinking rich,” to which Michael Taylor replied, “Getting stinking rick [sic], we are well on the way with that so I have the ball.” (Not that he was involved in his case, but this example explains why Mayor Kevin Johnson is suing the Sacramento News and Review to keep his emails, which are public records, away from the public. There is incriminating evidence in the emails.)

The investigation was conducted by the United States Department of Justice Office of Inspector General. The case was prosecuted by Deputy Chief Peter Koski and Trial Attorney Maria Lerner of the Criminal Division’s Public Integrity Section and Trial Attorney Ann Marie Blaylock of the Criminal Division’s Asset Forfeiture and Money Laundering Section. Trial Attorney Scott Feber of the National Security Division’s Counterespionage Section also assisted in the prosecution.

In other news, with all the new mixed-use high rises and housing developments planned for Sacramento, many residences are wondering why and what they are? A mixed-use housing development project is supposed to reduce the amount of land used to house people, and the term mixed-use means a building subsidized housing, and full price housing, all the same locations. These projects are usually located in bad areas. City officials are trying to convince people in is cool to live in areas where there is high crime and that there are too many big houses using up too much land. Most recently Sacramento Housing and Redevlopment Agency and the City of Sacramento received a $30 million grant to create a new mixed-used development not so peaceful Twin Rivers District. The good and the ill are all one while their lids are closed. People seldom commit sin without intending to derive benefit from it.