Experts to Speak on White Collar Crime, Ethics

By Jacqueline Molik Ghosen

BUFFALO, N.Y. -- U.S. Attorney William J. Hochul Jr. and Enron whistleblower Sherron Watkins will speak at the University at Buffalo School of Management on white collar crime and ethics in accounting, respectively.

Hochul will speak at 9 a.m. and Watkins will speak at 10:30 a.m. on Oct. 11 in the Center for Tomorrow on UB’s North Campus.

The visits will be sponsored by the Helen and Oscar Sufrin Lectureship in Accounting, which brings distinguished business professionals to the UB School of Management to speak about accounting issues.

Hochul is the United States Attorney for the Western District of New York and responsible for overseeing the prosecution of any federal criminal case brought within the 17 counties of Western New York. He joined the Department of Justice in 1987 as an assistant U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia. While in Washington, Hochul prosecuted an extensive array of criminal cases and later specialized in the prosecution of first-degree and gang-related murder cases.

After joining the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Western District of New York in 1991, Hochul prosecuted a large number of cases involving notorious violent and white collar criminals, racketeering and other complex schemes, and multiple cases targeting violent street gangs and emerging international organized crime groups. He became chief of the Office’s Anti-Terrorism Unit following 9/11 and chief of the National Security Division in 2006. While in these positions, he served as lead prosecutor in several high-profile international terrorism cases, including the successful prosecution of the group known as the Lackawanna Six.

Watkins is the former Enron Corp. vice president and whistleblower who alerted then-CEO Ken Lay in 2001 to accounting irregularities within the company, warning him that Enron “might implode in a wave of accounting scandals.” She testified before Congressional committees from the U.S. House and Senate investigating Enron’s demise. TIME magazine named Watkins, along with two others, Coleen Rowley of the FBI and Cynthia Cooper of WorldCom, as their 2002 Persons of the Year, for being “people who did right just by doing their jobs rightly,” and Barbara Walters included her as one of the 10 Most Fascinating People of 2002.

She has received the Court TV Scales of Justice Award, the National Academy of Management’s Distinguished Executive Award and the Rolfe Award for Educating the Public about Business and Finance. She is co-author, with Mimi Swartz, of “Power Failure: The Inside Story of the Collapse of Enron.”

Reservations are required by Oct. 4 for these free lectures and can be made by contacting Janet Kiefer at 716-645-3290.

The Sufrin Lectureship brings distinguished business professionals to the UB School of Management to speak about accounting issues. Funding is provided through the generous support of Leslie Sufrin, CPA, and Gerald Sufrin, MD, a long-time UB professor, in honor of their late parents.

The UB School of Management is recognized for its emphasis on real-world learning, community and economic impact, and the global perspective of its faculty, students and alumni. The school has been ranked by Bloomberg Businessweek, the Financial Times, Forbes, U.S. News & World Report and The Wall Street Journal for the quality of its programs and the return on investment it provides its graduates. For more information about the UB School of Management, visit mgt.buffalo.edu.

The University at Buffalo is a premier research-intensive public university, a flagship institution in the State University of New York system and its largest and most comprehensive campus. UB’s more than 28,000 students pursue their academic interests through more than 300 undergraduate, graduate and professional degree programs. Founded in 1846, the University at Buffalo is a member of the Association of American Universities.