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By Julia Cheever<\/strong><\/p>\n March 13, 2008<\/p>\n Prosecutors have asked a federal judge in San Francisco to send a former Silicon Valley executive to prison for at least six months and fine her $5.25 million for her role in a stock options backdating case.<\/p>\n Stephanie Jensen, 50, of Los Altos, a former vice president in charge of human resources for San Jose-based Brocade Communications Systems Inc., is due to be sentenced by U.S. District Judge Charles Breyer on March 19.<\/p>\n She was convicted in December of one count of conspiracy to falsify company books and records and one count of falsifying books.<\/p>\n Jensen’s case was the second in the nation to go to a federal jury trial in a nationwide probe of the corporate practice of backdating stock options so that employees can buy company stock at a better price.<\/p>\n The first to go to trial was the case of Jensen’s former boss, former Brocade Chief Executive Officer Gregory Reyes. Reyes was convicted in a separate trial of 10 counts including securities fraud.<\/p>\n He was sentenced by Breyer in January to a year and nine months in prison and fined $15 million. He was allowed to remain free while he appeals.<\/p>\n Prosecutors argued in a court filing late Wednesday that Jensen abused her position of trust at the data storage networking company and that she engaged “in a four-year scheme to hide what she was doing and then to lie about it to gain a competitive advantage.”<\/p>\n But defense attorneys on Wednesday submitted papers asking Breyer to sentence Jensen to probation or home detention and to limit the fine to $500,000.<\/p>\n Defense attorneys said Jensen “deeply regrets what happened at Brocade,” but said her actions were the result of inexperience and trust in others rather than a criminal mindset.<\/p>\n Backdating itself is not illegal, but it is illegal to fail to record the practice as a compensation expense in company books. Several other defendants have pleaded guilty to backdating related charges in other courts around the nation .<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" By Julia Cheever March 13, 2008 Prosecutors have asked a federal judge in San Francisco to send a former Silicon Valley executive to prison for at least six months and fine her $5.25 million…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6413,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[222],"tags":[458,456,460,459,461,457],"class_list":["post-175","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-backdating","tag-brocade","tag-justice-breyer","tag-sentencing","tag-stephanie-jensen","tag-stock-options"],"yoast_head":"\n