Stephen D. Richards is a New Zealand-born technology industry business leader. Rising through the ranks of Computer Associates International, beginning at the help desk in Sydney, Australia in 1988 and climbing to be the Executive Vice President responsible for Worldwide Sales in New York in 2000, where he remained until 2004. Indicted on fraud charges in 2004, along with Computer Associates CEO Sanjay Kumar, he was subsequently sentenced to seven years in jail in 2006. Beginning in 2007 he spent 44 months in Taft Correctional Institution in Taft, California, before being re-sentenced to time served in 2010.As part of the Harvard Business School curriculum, A Letter from Prison by Professor Eugene Soltes briefly details the history of the case and Stephen Richards insights into the financial management practices that saw him imprisoned.
