Adelphia Calls Auditor Deloitte Unreasonable

Adelphia Communications Corp. told federal regulators Monday that it decided in June it wasn’t appropriate to give former auditor Deloitte & Touche any more information because of the accountant’s “unreasonable refusal” to resume an audit of the cable television company.

Adelphia made the comments in an amendment to a Securities and Exchange Commission filing in which it had disclosed letters Deloitte wrote the firm and the SEC claiming that Adelphia withheld data the accountants needed.

“In light of that unreasonable refusal, the company determined that it was not appropriate to share with Deloitte any additional information, including the information Deloitte claims was withheld,” the nation’s sixth-largest cable company said in Monday’s SEC filing.

Adelphia executives wouldn’t comment beyond the filing, a company spokesman said. Deloitte & Touche executives didn’t return a call seeking comment.

Coudersport, Pa.-based Adelphia filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection June 25 after a slide that started with the disclosure in March that the family of founder John J. Rigas had borrowed billions through family-owned partnerships.

The company joined others, such as Enron Corp. and WorldCom Inc., under scrutiny for alleged accounting irregularities, with disclosures that the Rigas family had used company cash or assets for purposes such as buying a hockey team and investing in a golf course. Many of the deals were never approved by the board.

The Rigas family surrendered control of Adelphia in May. The firm has estimated it was liable for $3.1 billion in family debts.

Deloitte said in a June 9 letter to Adelphia disclosed in last week’s filing that it halted the audit because questions of whether workers had acted illegally “had to be investigated and satisfactorily resolved.”

Deloitte said it had refused to resume the audit despite requests by Adelphia, citing possible fabrication of documents and “lack of responsiveness to or cooperation with us [and] refusal to share material information with us.”