Two former officials from Take-Two Interactive have pleaded guilty to charges of falsifying stock option records.
Patti Tay, former chief accounting officer at Take-Two, pleaded guilty to making false entries on a stock option grant spreadsheet in 2001 and 2002, while the company’s former top lawyer, Kenneth I. Selterman, pleaded guilty to providing false information in a letter to regulators regarding the options.
The charges followed an investigation into irregularities with the company’s stock option grants earlier in the year. As a result of that investigation, former Take-Two chairman and CEO Ryan Brant pleaded guilty to two counts of options backdating and falsifying account records. He was fined $7.3 million and permanently banned from holding positions at public companies. In April, Chief Financial Officer Karl Winters resigned over the same controversy.
Take-Two Interactive, best known for its controversial Rockstar releases, has suffered from consistently poor financial performance over the preceding year, which in conjunction with its legal difficulties resulted in the installation of a new management team earlier in the year.
