This week, Compliance Week chats with Sam Antar—former CFO of Crazy Eddie’s, the disgraced stereo equipment business that foisted a $70 million fraud on investors in the 1980s. Antar helped mastermind the scheme, and then was a star witness in the trial that sent his cousin Eddie Antar to prison. Today, Sam Antar is an outspoken champion of Sarbanes-Oxley reforms. Below are Antar’s frank views of how financial fraud operates and what more America should do to prevent it. An index of previous conversations is available here.
You’ve said that Crazy Eddie had a culture of tax evasion that led you to commit fraud. Where do you rank “tone at the top” as a control against fraud?
