Figure in fraud sentenced

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Thursday, Jan. 8, 2004 | 11:02 a.m.

ALEXANDRIA, Va. -- A former top executive of a Las Vegas software company that engaged in illegal bookkeeping deals with America Online was sentenced to nearly three years in prison Wednesday for conspiracy to commit wire fraud.

Jeffrey R. Anderson, a former senior vice president at PurchasePro, pleaded guilty in September in U.S. District Court in Alexandria to a corporate fraud scheme that allowed the publicly traded company to falsely inflate revenue to meet Wall Street expectations.

As part of a plea agreement, he agreed to cooperate with the investigation, which federal prosecutors said Wednesday is ongoing.

AOL, now a division of Time Warner, is never mentioned by name in the charges against Anderson, but court documents make it clear that AOL is a company with which Purchase Pro entered a fraudulent agreement to falsely inflate revenue.