• by Steve McClellan  @mp_mcclellan, March 8, 2012

Former Posterscope executives Todd Hansen and James Buckley were arraigned this week at the U.S. District Court in Manhattan on charges that they defrauded the company, an Aegis Group out-of-home shop. The formal indictment was filed Feb. 29.

Both of the former executives pled not guilty to the two-count indictment alleging both wire fraud and conspiracy to commit wire fraud. Hansen did so in absentia from California, where he resides. He was granted permission to skip a live appearance at the arraignment due to back surgery in January that will keep him technically “disabled” until mid-April.

Hansen, who posted $50,000 bail when he was first arrested back in the fall of 2011, has been ordered by the court to restrict his travel to within California -- and for purposes related to his case, New York.  

District Court Judge Jed S. Rakoff, who has been assigned the case, has set a pre-trial conference for April 24.

Hansen, the former president of Posterscope USA, and Buckley, the unit’s former finance director, were arrested on Oct. 31, 2011 after a joint investigation by the U.S. District Attorney’s office and the FBI.

The government charged the two men with cooking the shop’s books to make it look like it earned net income of $19.75 million more than it actually did between 2005 and 2009. The prosecutors said the pair enacted what they called a “classic accounting fraud scheme” in order to meet performance goals that would guarantee them certain salaries and bonuses.

The indictment refers to an unnamed “former controller” who was ordered to falsify some accounting entries.

“As a result of meeting these fictitious performance goals, Hansen and Buckley were paid total salaries and bonuses in the amounts of $1.1 million and $650,000 respectively,” the initial charge sheet stated.

In addition, the government said Hansen during the same period “allegedly misused tens of thousands of dollars of company funds to pay for expenses and fees that benefited him, his family and friends and that were unrelated to the company’s legitimate business.” The expenses were said to include apartment rental fees, country-club dues and airplane tickets.

Hansen departed the company at the end of 2009 amid a management shakeup and corporate reorganization. He was replaced by OOH industry veteran Connie Garrido.