MGM Mirage CEO resigns after falsified credentials revealed

Tracy Coenen — Fri, 14 Nov 2008 08:30:00 EST

Filed under: From the Boards, Employees, Scandals

Late Thursday, MGM Mirage (NYSE: MGM) CEO and Chairman J. Terrence Lanni stepped down from his position after reports surfaced that he had falsely claimed to have earned an MBA degree from the University of Southern California.

The news came following reports that several public companies had executives whose biographies listed college degrees they didn't earn. The University of Southern California had no record of Lanni's degree.

MGM Mirage became aware of the situation after someone from USC contacted the company to warn it about inquiries regarding the degree from the Wall Street Journal and fraud investigator Barry Minkow. Lannni says that his sudden resignation has nothing to do with the credentials issue, and that this move was based on his desire to live with his wife again, who has been living in California.

It's hard to believe Lanni. Like other gaming companies, MGM Mirage is struggling because of the economy. This is no time for the resignation of the CEO with no warning or notice. Adding to the unbelievability factor is Lanni's explanation. Like other executives caught fabricating their credentials, he came up with a silly (and untrue) story to cover the deception: He says that he took MBA classes and never finished the degree, but was awarded an honorary MBA from the school in the 1970s.

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Public company executives caught lying about college degrees

Tracy Coenen — Thu, 13 Nov 2008 12:55:00 EST

Filed under: Scandals

Felon-turned-fraud investigator Barry Minkow has released the names of seven public company executives caught lying about their degrees. Sounds unusual, doesn't it? Well, the former head of the fraud known as ZZZZ Best Carpet Cleaning has been working hard to verify the credentials of 358 public company executives and directors. The names put through the ringer were generally in industries he suspected were filled with "hype." Upon identifying executives whose degrees weren't listed in a large database of college graduates, schools were contacted directly to verify if the executives earned degrees or not.

Why is any of this important? I've been investigating corporate fraud for over a decade, and have generally found that when there's a small fraud being committed by an upper-level executive, chances are greater there's a much larger fraud being perpetrated at the same time. My evidence is only anecdotal, but I've become a believer based on what I've witnessed -- that small frauds are often only the tip of the iceberg when it comes to wrongdoing by upper management.

Which companies have degreeless executives? Trimble Navigation (NASDAQ: TRMB), Cabot Microelectronics Corp, Tetra Tech Inc. (NASDAQ: TTEK), Knight Capital Group Inc. (NASDAQ: NITE), Helix Energy Solutions (NYSE: HLX), Life Partners Holdings (NASDAQ: LPHI) and PepsiAmericas (NYSE: PAS). Some of the executives don't have degrees at all, while others have lesser degrees than company documents claimed.

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Public company executives caught lying about college degrees originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Thu, 13 Nov 2008 12:55:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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