• February 6, 2004

Peter Chrisanthopoulos, once a rising media buying star and a former top network marketing executive, has become the first person to plead guilty to charges that some Ogilvy & Mather executives conspired to defraud the government by over-billing the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy for work on its advertising account. Chrisanthopoulos, a former top media executive at O&M and its sister media buying shop MindShare, pleaded guilty last week to falsifying time sheets. The please was first reported by New York's The Daily News. Chrisanthopoulos, whose career also included posts as the head of marketing at ABC, as well as head of the broadcast networks' short-lived Network Television Association, recently resigned as president-COO of Pappas Telecasting Cos.