Letters: Numbers don’t tell the full story about fraud

Re “Ex-KPMG accountant is charged,” Business, April 12

For the 25 years I ran the California Community Foundation, KPMG was our auditing firm. For 10 of those years, our auditor was Scott London, the former KPMG auditor accused of fraud.

I knew London only through our meetings at the foundation, but I liked what I saw. If life were “The Simpsons,” the affable London would be Ned Flanders.

But he was enormously successful, earning more than $500,000 a year.

This makes the $25,000 to $50,000 he received for abetting his friend in insider trading all the more inexplicable and tragic.

He has been open about what he did and said he plans to plead guilty next month.

Insider trading, at least on the scale London is accused of practicing it, is the epitome of the victimless crime. But London is probably going to the clink. On the other hand, Angelo Mozilo, the former Countrywide Financial CEO whose company is responsible for thousands of foreclosures and bankruptcies, remains a free (and wealthy) man.

I’m not excusing London, but I hope he avoids jail time. Ned Flanders wouldn’t fare well in prison.

Jack Shakely

Rancho Mirage

ALSO:

Letters: Scouting has rules, so do we

Letters: Crowding out justice in prisons

Letters: Jonathan Winters, comic genius