Former Homestore CEO Goes on Trial

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Stuart Wolff, former chairman and chief executive of Homestore Inc., went on trial on Thursday in federal court in Los Angeles for allegedly inflating sales at the Westlake Village-based company by $67 million in 2001.


Wolff is charged with falsifying Homestore’s regulatory filings as part of a scheme to inflate the online real estate firm’s revenue and hide it from company auditors.


Assistant U.S. Attorney Michael Wilner said in his opening statement that Wolff’s “role was to approve the scheme and to put it in motion,” according to Bloomberg News. Wolff’s lawyer countered in his opening remarks, saying Wolff didn’t have knowledge of the illegal activities that employees in the finance department were taking part in.


Earlier this month, Peter Tafeen, a former executive vice president of business development at Homestore pleaded guilty to his role in the 2001 accounting scandal, averting a lengthy criminal trial. Tafeen pleaded guilty to one count of securities fraud and faces up to 10 years in prison. He was the 10th Homestore executive to plead guilty to taking part in a fraudulent scheme to inflate the firm’s stock price by pumping up its advertising revenue.


Late last month, Homestore reached a settlement with Tafeen to cap his legal fees at $11.9 million. The company had also reached a similar agreement last year with Wolff.


The company recently changed its name to Move Inc. to better reflect its online real estate business and put the accounting scandal behind it.

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