By Robert E. Kessler
Newsday (New York)
Copyright 2007 Newsday, Inc.
NEWARK, N.Y. — Heroic, hardworking volunteer fireman. White-collar criminal.
That sums up the contradictory history of David Kaplan that came out yesterday when the former senior vice president of financial administration at Computer Associates was sentenced for his role in the $2.2-billion accounting scandal at the software company.
Kaplan, 40, of Melville, chief of the Melville volunteer fire department, was given six months’ home detention by U.S. District Judge I. Leo Glasser in Brooklyn because of his extraordinary cooperation with federal prosecutors in the case and his service as a volunteer firefighter.
Kaplan, who pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit securities fraud and obstruction of justice, could have faced up to life in prison under sentencing guidelines.
Kaplan’s lawyer, John Siffert of Manhattan, said his client was so respected as a volunteer and an emergency medical technician that he has been elected chief of the Melville department three times since he was arrested by FBI agents in 2004.
A volunteer firefighter since he was a teenager in Jericho, Kaplan was injured in a 1984 accident that killed another volunteer, Siffert said. Siffert said they both fell off the back of a fire truck when it was struck by a van while going through an intersection.
Newpaper accounts at the time reported that Jericho fireman John Carlson died, and Kaplan, then 18, was one of seven firefighters injured in the incident. Police said the fire truck, which had its lights and sirens on, had the right of way. The call turned out to be a false alarm.
Siffert said Kaplan, who has responded to 2,306 emergency calls in the last two years alone, was so dedicated he once missed an important meeting with his attorneys because he was responding to an emergency call in which he saved the life of a baby who was choking.
“When someone in Melville dials 911 ... there is about a 50-percent chance that David Kaplan would be one of the first responders,” Siffert said.
In one letter to Glasser, an official of the fire district asked for leniency for Kaplan, saying he “has defibrillated more cardiac patients over the years than the rest of the membership in total.”
Federal prosecutors Amy Walsh and Eric Komitee asked that Kaplan be given a lenient sentence because of his cooperation with the government and FBI agents.
Kaplan had played a key role in a complex scheme to falsify the company’s profitability to inflate its stock’s value, according to court papers. Kaplan then lied to company investigators about the scheme.
The prosecutors said that parts of the scheme were so unusual that it could not have been completely unraveled without Kaplan’s cooperation.
Glasser said that in serving home detention, Kaplan should not be required to be monitored by an electronic bracelet as is often customary, and should also be allowed to continue to work as an official at an unidentified meat distributorship and continue to make fire calls as community service.
“I participated in wrong-doing that I recognized was wrong and I’m truly sorry for my conduct,” Kaplan said in a written statement.