Sequence Inc. Fraud Files Blog

Dear Mr. Shurtleff,

I am writing to you today to request that you issue a public apology to Sam Antar for the defamatory and untrue letter you recently sent to Overstock.com regarding Mr. Antar.

Mr. Antar agreed to present at your White Collar Crime Conference at no cost to you, and he even paid for his own travel expenses. He took time out of his professional career to train your staff, and the disrespectful and defamatory letter you issued regarding the training was shameful.

Yesterday, Overstock.com and their CEO Patrick Byrne made your letter to them public. I was shocked and dismayed at the factual inaccuracies in your letter, as well as your attempt to cast Mr. Antar in a very negative light.I provide the following responses to the untrue claims you made about Mr. Antar in your letter of November 8:

• I tried to post this letter as a comment on his blog but Mr. Antar apparently refused to post it. – Mr. Antar says no such comment was ever submitted to his blog, and I believe him. If you had such grave concerns, why didn’t you pick up a telephone or contact him directly via email? Surely those methods would have been more effective than your purported attempt to post something on his blog.
• Mr. Antar was invited to speak at our 14th Annual White Collar Crime Conference, and to express my concern and dismay at the way Mr. Antar used that invitation to “bookend,” and inappropriately attempt to legitimize, his attack on a publicly traded company headquartered in Utah. – A reading of Mr. Antar’s blog post makes it clear that your assertion here is false. Mr. Antar indicated he spoke at your conference, merely in order set the stage and explain why he was in Utah in the first place.
• I was warned that Mr. Antar might use this speaking engagement to suggest that my office or I personally, endorse or support his accusations against Overstock.com or some other public company. – I have never seen Mr. Antar do any such thing. He does, in fact, list his speaking engagements on his website and he does discuss the organizations which have invited him to give presentations. Nothing I have seen indicates that he is using these engagements for “promotional” purposes. What would he be promoting? He does not get paid for these engagements. He doesn’t even ask for reimbursement of travel expenses, which surely total at least tens of thousands of dollars each year.
• So much for the promises of a convicted felon! The day after speaking in Utah, he submitted the forgoing post, opening and closing his latest round of Overstock attacks with references to me, my office, and his presentation at our crime conference. – Again, a reading of Mr. Antar’s blog post makes it clear that your implication that he used your presentation to legitimize himself is false. Mr. Antar gave only factual information about his appearance in Utah and why he was there.
• Let me be perfectly clear: Our invitation to Mr. Antar was in no way an endorsement of his views on the current practices of any public company. It was in no way a statement of support or an endorsement of Mr. Antar’s controversial statements respecting any particular public company of any sort. Our invitation, and his presentation at our conference, should not to be taken as any comment on Mr. Antar’s self-promotion as a person who can detect and expose errant practices of public companies. – Mr. Antar has never stated directly or even implied that you or your office endorse his unpaid work of examining the financial statements of public companies.
• I admonish Mr. Antar to remove from his website any reference (including the forgoing blog) that might suggest such a conclusion; and to be careful not to suggest such a connection or conclusion in any of his public statements. – Again, the information posted on Mr. Antar’s website is merely factual in nature. There is no legitimate reason why he should remove those statements from his site.

The day of Mr. Antar’s presentation, he had nothing but good things to say about you and your office. He was impressed with your staff and was clearly happy that he could assist them in learning more about white collar crime.

And then he is treated like this? Publicly shamed by you with false and defamatory statements?

It is no secret that Mr. Antar and Patrick Byrne have quite publicly disagreed about management issues at Overstock.com. But for you to involve yourself in this dishonest fashion is reprehensible.

Please issue an appropriate public apology to Mr. Antar, so that the public may be aware of the factual inaccuracies you included in your November 8 letter about his appearance at your conference. Mr. Antar was kind enough to take time out of his professional schedule to present training for the benefit of your staff, and the least you could do is be honest about the circumstances surrounding the speaking engagement.

In light of the seriousness of your false statements about Mr. Antar, I believe an immediate public apology is in order. Please issue one today, so that these false assertions about Mr. Antar are not allowed to remain in the public arena one minute longer.

Very truly yours,

Tracy L. Coenen, CPA, MBA, CFE