Former KB Home Chief Executive Bruce Karatz on Friday lost his bid for a new trial, six months after a jury convicted him of hiding backdated stock options from auditors and regulators.
U.S. District Judge Otis D. Wright II, at a hearing in Los Angeles, upheld three of the four counts on which Karatz was found guilty, setting aside one count of mail fraud. In April, jurors found Karatz guilty of two counts of mail fraud and two counts of making a false statement.
Karatz faced as long as 80 years in prison based on the jury conviction. Prosecutors accused him of unauthorized and undisclosed backdating of stock options that brought him $6.62 million in compensation he wasn’t entitled to from 1999 to 2005.
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