AOL-PurchasePro acquittals

Two former mid-level executives at America Online were acquitted Tuesday on all charges they conspired with a now-defunct Las Vegas software firm to inflate its revenue.

A third defendant, a former senior executive at Las Vegas-based PurchasePro, also was found not guilty on all counts.

John Tuli, 39, of Weston, Mass., a former vice president in AOL’s NetBusiness unit; Kent Wakeford, 38, of New York, a former executive director at AOL’s business affairs unit; and Christopher Benyo, 45, of Greer, S.C., a former senior vice president of marketing at PurchasePro, had been accused of conspiracy and abetting stock fraud by deceiving PurchasePro stockholders about the company’s revenue in the first quarter of 2001.

At the time, PurchasePro was leaning heavily on its partnership with AOL to supply revenue; prosecutors said AOL was motivated to assist PurchasePro’s fraud because AOL received a commission every time it helped sell PurchasePro’s core product, a “marketplace license” that supposedly facilitated business-to-business transactions over the Internet.

PurchasePro founder Charles “Junior” Johnson, is to go on trial in August. He had been on trial with the other defendants, but U.S. District Judge Walter D. Kelley Jr. declared a mistrial in Johnson’s case for reasons that remain under seal.