Jensen
United States v. Jensen
Opinion
Opinion
Breyer, J.
ORDER RE SENTENCING GUIDELINES
On December 5, 2007, a jury convicted the defendant Stephanie Jensen on one count of conspiracy and one count of falsifying company books and records. The evidence at trial proved that as the director of Brocade Communications’ Human Resources Department, Jensen willfully and knowingly falsified the company’s corporate records over a three-year period to conceal the actual date when stock options were granted by the company’s CEO, Gregory Reyes. Now before the Court is the task of sentencing.
As a threshold matter, the Court must determine whether Jensen’s sentence may include a term of imprisonment. The Securities Exchange Act’s penalty provision, 15 U.S.C. § 78ff, precludes imprisonment “for the violation of any rule or regulation if [the defendant] proves that he had no knowledge of such rule or regulation.” The Court concludes that Jensen’s sentence may include a term of imprisonment because she has not carried her burden of establishing that she had no knowledge of the SEC rule prohibiting the falsification of books and records, 17 C.F.R. § 240 .13b2-l.
Because the “No Knowledge Clause” does not preclude imprisonment in this case, the Court…