Ex-Software CEO Sentenced to 8 Years in Fraud

Bruce V. Bigelow12/12/08

Stephen Gardner, the former CEO of San Diego’s scandal-ridden enterprise software giant Peregrine Systems, was sentenced yesterday to eight years in prison for helping inflate Peregrine’s revenue. The San Diego Union-Tribune reported that Gardner told a federal judge in San Diego yesterday, “I did hide problems in the hope that they would be fixed and we could move on.” Gardner was among 18 people charged with participating in a scheme that systematically overstated revenue from 1999 to 2001. Peregrine collapsed in early 2002 and later filed for bankruptcy.

Bruce V. Bigelow is the editor of Xconomy San Diego. You can e-mail him at bbigelow@xconomy.com or call (619) 669-8788