Debra W. Yang
United States Attorney
Central District of California
United States Courthouse
312 North Spring Street
Los Angeles, California 90012
April 25, 2005
Thom Mrozek (213) 894-6947
Los Angeles, CA - A former vice president of Vans Inc., who admitted that he obtained $4.7 million in bribes and kickbacks from Chinese factories that manufactured Vans shoes and clothing, was sentenced this morning to 71 months in federal prison.
Scott Andrew Brabson, 50, of Goleta, California, was sentenced by United States District Judge John F. Walter.
The second defendant in the case, Jay William Rosendahl, 48, of Lake Oswego, Oregon, also was sentenced this morning by Judge Walter to 71 months in federal prison.
In addition to the prison sentences, Judge Walter ordered both defendants to pay $4.7 million in restitution to Vans.
Earlier this year, each defendant pleaded guilty to four felony charges: conspiracy, foreign travel to promote bribery, "honest services" wire fraud and money laundering.
Between November 1997 and December 2000, Brabson was the vice president of sourcing for the Santa Fe Springs-based Vans, a position that had him overseeing the company's manufacturing operation. Brabson arranged for Vans to hire Rosendahl as a product development consultant in February 1999.
Brabson and Rosendahl met with owners and managers of Chinese factories and informed them that in order to continue receiving product orders from Vans, the factories would have to send kickbacks amounting to 3 percent of Vans' orders. The defendants provided the factories with the number of a Hong Kong bank account, and the factories wire-transferred the kickbacks into the account they had established under the name StreamFlow Holdings Limited.
Shortly after Brabson left Vans, he moved almost $3 million of the money into accounts at a Luxembourg bank. Brabson then transferred about $1.3 million into different Hong Kong bank accounts controlled by Rosendahl. Each defendant withdrew hundreds of thousands of dollars in cash along the way.
When he pleaded guilty earlier this year, Brabson acknowledged that he fabricated e-mails and other communications that purported to be internal Vans documents and which appeared both to exonerate him in the bribery scheme and implicate other Vans executives in allegations of inflated earnings made by shareholders in a class-action against the shoemaker.
This matter was investigated by IRS-Criminal Investigation Division, the United States Postal Inspection Service and the Federal Bureau of Investigation.
Release No. 05-062
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