{"id":10254,"date":"2012-02-21T08:13:22","date_gmt":"2012-02-21T13:13:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.raleighpublicrecord.org\/?p=10254"},"modified":"2012-02-20T09:48:18","modified_gmt":"2012-02-20T14:48:18","slug":"the-strange-life-and-death-of-law-enforcement-associates-part-two","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/theraleighcommons.org\/raleighpublicrecord\/news\/2012\/02\/21\/the-strange-life-and-death-of-law-enforcement-associates-part-two\/","title":{"rendered":"The Strange Life and Death of Law Enforcement Associates: Part Two"},"content":{"rendered":"

This is part two of a three-part series.<\/em><\/p>\n

Part Two: The Middle Years<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

The idiosyncrasies at Law Enforcement had just begun.<\/p>\n

In August 2005, Mike Wagner took over as CFO. He and Feldman butted heads almost immediately, mostly because Feldman was still insistent on bringing the stun gun to market. Wagner said Feldman\u2019s focus was almost obsessive, and he would even take trips to Russia to meet with development engineers. After Feldman approved several large purchase orders that some suspected involved under the table payments, Carrington became worried and met with Wagner.<\/p>\n

When Feldman found out that information had been exchanged, he turned on Wagner and threatened to report him. The CFO\u2019s refusal to bend the numbers further eroded their relationship.<\/p>\n

\u201cUnfortunately in accounting, there’s not a lot of gray area,\u201d Wagner said.\u00a0 \u201cIt\u2019s pretty black and white. Feldman knew I wasn’t going to bend in his direction on anything that was questionable. He knew I was going to fight him on it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Wagner said that Feldman claimed false revenue on a contract at least once more while he was CFO. In addition, Wagner spent much of his early tenure with the company adjusting numbers from 2004, when accountants failed to book more than $900,000 in liabilities. When he returned from a vacation in June 2006, Feldman asked him to resign. Wagner obliged, and a SEC filing was released claiming he\u2019d stepped down for personal reasons.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

John Carrington<\/p><\/div>\n

But any problems with Feldman temporarily paled in comparison to John Carrington\u2019s ordeal in mid-2005. On April 18, he issued a surprise statement that he was resigning from the company. He claimed it had nothing to do with company business, but stemmed from talks with his family and concerns about age and health (Carrington was 70 at the time).<\/p>\n

In October, after a long investigation, Carrington was charged with illegally shipping more than $1 million in law enforcement products to China via Hong Kong and Italy. Federal law barred this kind of export to nations with recorded human rights abuses.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think the way they found out about it was a shipping person finally came clean and admitted Carrington knew that it was illegal,\u201d said Wagner. \u201cThey were trying to route the shipment through another country to shield it from the export laws.\u201d<\/p>\n

Carrington pled guilty to the felony charges and was fined $850,000 and given a 5-year export suspension. But he wasn\u2019t finished with the company.<\/p>\n

*<\/p>\n

On July 14, 2005, Law Enforcement was officially listed on the American Stock Exchange<\/a>, and company representatives were given the honor of ringing the opening bell in August. On Nov. 7, 2008, after more than three years of missed filing deadlines, warnings from the SEC and AMEX, and poor financial results, the company voluntarily de-listed.<\/p>\n