• Brandweek, Monday, December 11, 2006 11 AM

Tom Rubin, the former chairman/CEO of ad placement agency Focus Media has been sentenced to five and half years in the federal pen for stealing as much as $40 million from Sears and Universal Studios' ad accounts.

Focus CFO Thomas Sullivan and Geoffrey Mousseau--an attorney who represented them before getting nailed for helping in the scame--were sent up for three and a half years and 21 months, respectively. U.S. District Court Judge Gary Feess will also order the convicts to pay restitution to the victims and set a hearing for late January to determine just how much.

Feess was unmoved by testimony that Rubin is a devoted father, son, friend, pillar of the community and helpless alcoholic. Instead, the judge said he was "the goose who laid the golden egg" and a person with "disrespect for the law and the legal process" who was driven by "substantial greed."

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