A former Vans executive, Scott Andrew Brabson, and Jay William Rosendahl, a former Columbia exec who was a consultant to Vans, were sentenced Monday to 71 months in federal prison after admitting earlier this year to taking kickbacks from Chinese manufacturers in exchange for continuing to place product orders. Brabson and Rosendahl were also ordered to pay $4.7 million in restitution to Vans. Local papers are also reporting that Brabson was ordered to undergo treatment for addictions to alcohol and pharmaceutical drugs.
As part of his February plea, Brabson acknowledged that he fabricated e-mails and other communications that purported to be internal Vans documents and which appeared both to exonerate him in the bribery scheme and implicate other Vans executives in allegations of inflated earnings made by shareholders in a class-action against the shoemaker. Rosendahl agreed to plead guilty to the same four felony charges.
Between November 1997 and December 2000, Brabson was the vice president of sourcing for Vans, a position that had him overseeing the company's manufacturing operation. Brabson arranged for Vans to hire Rosendahl as a product development consultant in February 1999.
