Houston - Only 5 ½ years since the collapse of Enron, and with Jeff Skilling still settling in to life in a federal prison, the largest city in Texas has been rocked by another financial scandal.
J. Hancock Roostermeyer IV, the 26 year old wunderkind, who founded the Houston-based Avian Accounting while attending graduate school at Benedict Arnold Community College, was charged in federal court today with accounting fraud in a case which has already attracted international attention since investigators from the Securities and Exchange Commission began a probe of the accounting firm last fall.
SEC officials allege that Roostermeyer masterminded a scheme to inflate the profits of several poultry companies for whom accounting services were provided by counting their chickens before they hatched. If convicted on all counts, Roostermeyer faces a maximum of sixty-two years in prison.
Sal Manella
Business News Reporter
