Consequences of circulation fraud: a warning from history6 Admit Guilt in Case of Circulation Fraud
By The Associated Press May 29, 2006
Six people pleaded guilty last week to federal conspiracy charges, admitting they helped inflate circulation figures at Newsday and the Spanish-language publication Hoy.
The pleas, entered in Federal District Court in Brooklyn on Friday and Monday, brought to nine the number of people who have pleaded guilty so far in the scandal. Newsday has acknowledged that between 2000 and 2004, it inflated its circulation by nearly 100,000 copies on weekdays and Sundays. Hoy doubled its reported circulation, prosecutors said.
The five people who pleaded guilty Friday and another former executive who pleaded guilty on Monday face between 4 and 20 years in prison.
The Tribune Company, which owns both Newsday and Hoy, has set aside $90 million to reimburse advertisers who were overcharged based on the inflated circulation figures. "We have cooperated with the authorities in every way possible from the outset of their investigation and will continue to do so," a Newsday spokeswoman, Deidra Parrish Williams, said in a statement.