DENVER-
A judge ordered Qwest Communications Wednesday to produce documents involving nearly three dozen people associated with the company in connection with the insider trading case against former CEO Joe Nacchio.
U.S. District Judge Edward Nottingham granted a defense motion that will require Qwest Communications International Inc. to deliver the documents to Nacchio’s attorneys and prosecutors at a Friday hearing.
The defense requested a “grant detail and exercise report” on former executives and board directors, including company founder Phil Anschutz, who retired as a director last year; former chief legal officer Drake Tempest; and former chief operating officer Afshin Mohebbi.
Two others listed in the court filing are former finance chiefs Robin Szeliga and Robert Woodruff.
Szeliga was sentenced in July to two years’ probation and a $250,000 fine for one count of insider trading involving Qwest stock and is expected to be a key witness against Nacchio when his trial starts March 19.
The motion by Nacchio attorney Herbert Stern did not specify what the documents would include, but they likely will list stock options or possibly grants of stock for each employee during a specified time frame, said Carr Conway, a former Securities and Exchange Commission investigator now at a private company.
Stern’s motion asked for information on each person beginning they day he or she started work at Qwest or on its board through Dec. 31, 2001.
Nacchio, a former chief executive officer, is accused of selling $101 million worth of stock in 2001 based on inside knowledge that Qwest would be unable to meet revenue targets.
If convicted, he could face a penalty of up to 10 years in prison and a $1 million fine per count. He has pleaded not guilty and is free on bail.
Defense lawyers have said Nacchio believed Qwest would get hundreds of millions of dollars worth of classified government contracts that made him more optimistic about the future of Qwest, a telephone provider in 14 mostly Western states.
In a separate civil case, Nacchio is one of several former Qwest executives accused in a pending civil case of orchestrating a financial fraud that forced Qwest to restate billions of dollars in revenue.
