How easy is it for fraud to spiral out of control? Just ask Aaron Beam.
He is co-founder and former CFO of HealthSouth Corp., home of a $2.7 billion accounting fraud that took place between 1996 and 2002. Beam served three months in jail for his role in starting the fraud. In the process, he lost most of his personal wealth and now does lawn care for a living. Read this interview with Beam, which ilustrates just how quickly a seemingly minor infraction can snowball into major corporate fraud.
Among his words of wisdom: "The correct thing I should have done was, at the critical point when we weren't going to make our numbers, I should have said no (to any illegal actions). "If I got fired, I got fired. Once you actually commit fraud and have blood on your hands, getting out of the trap is very difficult."
I doubt Beam was a CPA. In Maryland you have to take an ethics course in college and pass an ethics exam just to become a CPA.
Even that is not enough. As a professional CPA you are required to devote at least four hours of training to ethics every two years.
So CPAs take ethics very seriously. You can ask Aaron Beam why.
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