Former Internet Company CFO Sentenced

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The former chief financial officer of Internet advertising firm L90 Inc. was sentenced Monday to 18 months in federal prison for his role in overstating company revenues by at least $4.3 million in 2000-2001.


Thomas Sebastian, now living in Virginia, pleaded guilty in March 2004 to conspiring to commit securities fraud and admitted that he helped inflate revenues using advertising barter transactions with other Internet companies. In addition to his prison sentence, Sebastian was ordered to serve nine months of home detention.


Sebastian is one of five former L90 executives charged with securities fraud by federal prosecutors in U.S. District Court, Central District of California.


L90, now MaxWorldwide Inc., was based in Marina del Rey at the time.


The former chief executive of L90, John Bohan, is expected to be sentenced on Dec. 12 by a federal judge in Los Angeles after pleading guilty to securities fraud. Three others, including the former vice president of finance, Lucrezia Bickerton, have pleaded guilty to similar charges.


Most of the L90 transactions took place from July 1999 through March 2002 and involved swapping checks with the other companies and recording them as false revenue for a subsidiary, webMillion.com. Sometimes, a fake third-party company would be involved in the swaps.


According to federal prosecutors, Sebastian hid the third party companies from auditors and signed L90’s filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. He also gave false revenue numbers on quarterly conference calls with analysts and investors, according to prosecutors.


As part of an earlier settlement with the SEC, Sebastian paid more than $400,000 in penalties and is barred from serving as an officer or director of a public company.

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