Petro America Corp. (fka PTRZ)

[nodummy]

Isreal Owen Hawkins Jr. made the Forbes list for top 10 Biggest CEO screw-ups of 2010:

http://www.forbes.com/2010/11/30/ceo-screw-ups-leadership-managing-2010_slide.html


10. Cary Fiorina, Hewlett-Packard

California senate candidate and former Hewlett-Packard Chief Executive Carly Fiorina was prepping for a TV interview when a live microphone caught her mocking opponent Barbara Boxer's hair: "God, what is that hair? So yesterday!" Fiorina would likely have lost her election bid anyway, but that comment sure didn't help.


9. Linda McMahon, World Wrestling Entertainment

Connecticut gubernatorial candidate Linda McMahon, who once ran World Wrestling Entertainment, admitted that she didn't know whether WWE paid any of its employees minimum wage, or even what Connecticut's minimum wage was. She lost her election too.


8. Michael Lyon, Lyon Real Estate

The FBI began investigating Michael Lyon, the now ex-chief executive of Lyon Real Estate in Sacramento, Calif., as he was undergoing a messy divorce from his second wife. Lyon had allegedly secretly recorded people in his homes. In August the U.S. attorney's office announced it was closing its 16-month long probe, citing a lack of evidence. But the Sacramento County sheriff's and district attorney's offices decided to pick up where the Feds left off, launching their own investigation to determine whether he had broken any state laws. In late August Lyon announced that he was temporarily stepping down from the top spot at the company, which his father founded in 1946, and in November he was arrested for allegedly making surreptitious videos of sex acts with women, at least one of them an "escort," in his home. He is currently free on bail.


7. Jon Latorella, Locateplus

Sleuthing is encouraged at Locateplus, a Beverly, Mass., outfit that provides access to all kinds of public data, like real estate and telephone records. Earlier this month Jon Latorella, the company's now-ex CEO, was indicted on charges of securities fraud, filing false statements to the company's auditor and the Securities and Exchange Commission, aggravated theft and other charges. The indictment alleges that Latorella and his former CFO carried out several fraudulent schemes in order to artificially inflate the company's revenues. The most bizarre charge against the duo is that they used the identity of someone who died in 1985 to invent both a business executive who worked with Locateplus and an investor in a company the two men controlled. The two haven't yet had an initial court appearance. Of course they must be presumed innocent until found guilty, but just bringing on such an indictment has to be considered a major screw-up.


6. Isreal Owen Hawkins Jr., Petro America

In October the federal government charged Isreal Owen Hawkins with securities fraud, claiming the Petro America chief executive knowingly sold unregistered securities to investors and aided and abetted the sale of the unregistered stock. Federal prosecutors also charged Hawkins with "aggravated currency structuring," which involves hiding large cash withdrawals from regulators. Hawkins has pleaded not guilty to each count of the indictment.


5. Gary Holden, Enmax

Earlier this month Gary Holden, the chief executive of Enmax, a Canadian energy supplier, sent a five-page e-mail to his entire staff defending his salary and criticizing the media for how it characterized extravagant parties at his home. In the letter a paranoid-sounding Holden warned his employees not to leak material to the press. Which, of course, is exactly what they did.


4. Lei Jin, GeneScience Pharmaceutical

In October Lei Jin, the chief executive of GeneScience Pharmaceutical, a Chinese drug manufacturer, pleaded guilty to charges of illegally marketing human growth hormones in the United States. As a result of the charges, Jin and the company jointly forfeited $4.5 million in assets and will pay an additional $3 million to fund anti-sports-doping efforts. Jin, through GeneScience, used the Internet to market human growth hormone under the company's brand name, Jintropin. He did so without obtaining approval from the Food and Drug Administration to market the drug in the U.S, where it's legally available only through a doctor's prescription.


3. Timothy Huff, GlobeTel Communications

Timothy Huff ran GlobeTel Communications, a telecom business in Fort Lauderdale, Fla. In July he was sentenced to 50 months in prison followed by three years of supervised release after pleading guilty to charges of conspiracy to commit securities fraud and to defraud the U.S., the Treasury Department and the Internal Revenue Service. For three years beginning in 2002, Huff conspired with GlobeTel's chief financial officer to create fake revenue, and then reported that revenue on the company's books and in its SEC filings. Huff and his CFO fabricated invoices and documents to back up the fictitious revenue the company was reporting. Thomas Jimenez, the CFO, pleaded guilty and is serving a sentence.


2. Mark Hurd, Hewlett-Packard

Bogus expense records--and, presumably, the threat of a PR disaster--led to Mark Hurd's forced resignation from Hewlett-Packard. HP's board ousted Hurd in August after claiming that he filed inaccurate expense reports that covered payments he had made to a female contractor. The woman's lawyer had contacted HP in June, charging Hurd with sexual harassment. Directors discovered the expense reports while investigating that charge, and then pressed Hurd to step down.


1. Tony Hayward, BP

BP chief executive Tony Hayward displayed a shocking lack of empathy--and a propensity for public gaffes--while the Deepwater Horizon rig was spilling millions of barrels of oil into the Gulf of Mexico. Hayward told The Guardian newspaper that the Gulf is a "very big ocean" and later described the spill's environmental impact as "very, very modest." He famously told the Today show that he'd "like my life back," and he attended a regatta on the Isle of Wight two days after a U.S. congressional committee questioned him. That all earns him the No. 1 spot among CEO screw-ups of 2010.