Gemstar-TV Guide International Inc.’s former Chief Executive Henry Yuen withdrew his guilty plea Monday to charges he destroyed evidence after a federal judge said he would not approve the terms of the agreement, Bloomberg News reported.

U.S. District Judge John Walter said at a hearing in Los Angeles that the deal Yuen had struck with prosecutors “fails to provide adequate deterrence to criminal conduct,” Bloomberg said.

In exchange for admitting he destroyed documents, Yuen had agreed to six months of home detention, a $1 million charitable donation and a $250,000 fine. The charge against Yuen was part of an investigation by the Securities and Exchange Commission into accounting irregularities at Gemstar that charged the L.A.-based company inflated its revenue by $248 million from 2000 to 2002.

In mid-December, Walter said that kind of sentence “sends the wrong message to corporate America with respect to the kind of punishment that can be expected.” Later, the SEC told Walter the Justice Department may have been too lenient in its plea agreement with Yuen.

In November, Gemstar sought a more severe sentence against Yuen in the criminal case. The company also took the unusual step of asking the U.S. Attorney’s office in the Middle District of Florida to launch a separate investigation of the allegations against Yuen.