Daily Archives: April 8, 2005

Former Seitel CEO Paul Frame convicted

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Seitel logo.gifPaul Frame, the former CEO of Houston-based geophysical seismic company Seitel, Inc., was convicted yesterday by a jury in Houston federal court of of swindling $750,000 from the company to settle a civil lawsuit that his former fiancee had filed against him. Here is a previous post on Mr. Frame’s indictment on those charges.
In an unusual move, U.S. District Judge David Hittner ordered Mr. Frame taken away by U.S. Marshals and placed in the Federal Detention Center in downtown Houston after the verdict rather than allowing him to remain free on bond pending sentencing. Prosecutors had requested a small increase in his bond, but had not opposed Mr. Frame’s release pending sentencing. Sentencing is scheduled for July 7, and Mr. Frame faces up to 20 years in federal prison.
Seitel emerged earlier from a chapter 11 case in 2004 that was commenced in 2003 several months after Mr. Frame had been terminated as the company’s CEO amidst revelations of his use of corporate assets for personal purposes and accounting issues regarding the value of Seitel’s primary asset, which is its library of geophysical seismic data.

How would you like this P.R. job?

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michael-jackson-mugshot.jpgThe Wall Street Journal’s ($) Washington Wire reports today that Michael Jackson’s 72% negative rating dwarfs his 5% positive rating, and that those numbers are worse than those of O.J. Simpson.
However, of some comfort to Mr. Jackson is that his ratings are slightly better than those of Saddam Hussein.

Did Buffett rat out AIG?

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warren_buffett.jpgIn an extraordinary development in the unfolding criminal investigation of transactions between American International General, Inc. and Berkshire-Hathaway, Inc., this NY Times article reports that Berkshire chairman Warren Buffett — in an effort to win leniency for Berkshire in an unrelated case — directed Berkshire’s lawyers several months ago to turn over documents describing the transaction between Berkshire unit General Re and AIG that is at the heart of the criminal investigation. Here are the previous posts on the AIG and Berkshire saga.
As a result of Mr. Buffett’s peace offering, former AIG chairman and CEO Maurice “Hank” Greenberg is facing the prospect of giving a deposition next week to the Justice Department, Securities and Exchange Commission, Eliot Spitzer and the New York attorney general’s office, and New York insurance regulators. In comparison, Mr. Buffett will merely be “interviewed” on Monday by the investigators, who consider him merely a witness in the AIG probe at this point.
According to the Times article and this similar Wall Street Journal ($) article, Mr. Buffett and Berkshire served up AIG and Mr. Greenberg on a platter to prosecutors in December when prosecutors were questioning Berkshire officials regarding General Re’s transactions with Reciprocal of America, a failed Virginia-based insurer. The prosecutors are investigating whether General Re had helped Reciprocal disguise loans as reinsurance to hide losses from insurance regulators. Two Reciprocal executives have copped plea deals and began cooperating with investigators, which led prosecutors to inform Berkshire lawyers that General Re and Berkshire executives may face criminal charges in connection with their probe of Reciprocal. A couple of weeks later, the Times and WSJ report that, at Mr. Buffett’s behest, Berkshire lawyers gave investigators documents regarding General Re’s questionable transaction with AIG.
Sort of makes one feel warm and fuzzy about doing business with that American business icon, Warren Buffett, doesn’t it?

Reds come to town

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After splitting the first two games of the season with the Cardinals, the Stros have their first weekend series of the season at Minute Maid Park against the slugging Cincinnati Reds, who are coming off a satisfying season-beginning three game sweep of the Mets. The Rocket takes the hill on Friday against the Reds’ Ramon Ortiz, followed by Backe on Saturday and Roy O. in the Sunday matinee.
It’s not prudent in baseball to make concrete conclusions based on the anecdotal experience of two games, but the Stros’ lack of hitting — particularly power hitting — is apparent. In Games 1 and 2 against the Cards, the Stros were able to score a total of seven runs on 22 hits, 15 of which were singles and none of which were home runs. Pitchers Pettitte, Qualls, and Lidge looked good in Game 2 against the Cards, but without more run production, good pitching will only go so far.
reds.gifThe Reds are sort of the polar opposite of the Stros, with a raft of mashers at the plate (Houston area resident Adam Dunn, Ken Griffey, Jr., Austin Kearns, etc.), but marginal pitching, at best. The Reds also started fast last season, but faded badly after the All-Star break as the club’s deficient pitching simply could not keep the team in many games. I think they will do better this season, but my sense is still that they do not have enough pitching to get to the 90 win level that is necessary to compete for a playoff spot.
The only thing that I’ve seen during the first two games that is truly baffling is Stros’ manager Phil Garner’s decision to bat light hitting shortstop Adam Everett in the leadoff spot in the Stros’ order. So far in his career, Everett has been a far below average hitter. Over the past two seasons, Everett has a -24 RCAA (explained here) — i.e, he has created 24 fewer runs than an average player in the National League would have produced in the same number of games. Moreover, Everett has a career on-base percentage of .315, which is well below the 2004 average OBP of .329 in the National League. Inasmuch as a club should not be batting someone at lead off who is merely average in terms of on base average, it goes without saying that a player who is below average in that department should not be leading off.
Although Garner’s reputation rode the crest of the Stros’ marvelous finish last season, his record during his eleven previous seasons as a manager before coming to the Stros was not good. Although Everett is a wonderful defensive player and those skills can justify playing him despite his offensive deficiencies, it is simply managerial malpractice for Garner to place him in the leadoff spot in the Stros’ order. A few more moves like that and Garner might as well hire Jimy Williams as his bench coach.
Meanwhile, over at the Brazosport News, Banjo Jones reports on a rather embarrassing problem pertaining to Alvin, Texas’ statute of former Stros star and local icon, Nolan Ryan.

A true character at the Naval Academy

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Paul Johnson2.jpgWhen Naval Academy head football coach Paul Johnson took over the head coaching job after the 2001 season, he inherited a Navy football program that that had gone 1-20 over the two seasons before he was hired.
In Coach Johnson’s first season, Navy went 2-10, playing six teams that played in postseason bowl games. But then, in 2003, Navy went 8-5 and became just the sixth team in NCAA history to make a bowl game two years or less after a winless season. This past season, the Midshipmen were 10-2, which was Navy’s first 10 win season in 99 years. In so doing, the Midshipmen wrapped up their second consecutive Commander in Chief’s Trophy (their last one had been in 1981) and beat New Mexico in the Emerald Bowl in San Francisco to give Navy its first bowl win since 1996.
In short, Coach Johnson can flat out coach.
Longtime Houston oil and gas attorney Dick Watt gained an appreciation for cogent football coaches while playing under the legendary Darrell Royal and Coach Royal’s late Defensive Coordinator, Mike Campbell, on the fine University of Texas football teams from 1966-68. Dick’s son, Andrew, is currently attending the Naval Academy and so Dick has taken an interest in Coach Johnson, whose blunt nature reminds him of football coaches from bygone eras.
Along those lines, Dick passes along this recent interview with Coach Johnson, who is just not pleased with the way spring football practice is going at the Naval Academy. Here are a few pearls of wisdom from the interview:

Q. How does the team look?
A. Lovely.
Q. Who’s your best fullback?
A. I don’t know. I don’t know if we have one.
Q. Have you not been pleased with what you’ve seen from the fullbacks so far?
A. Not really.
Q. In what way?
A. I just haven’t been pleased.
Q. They don’t run hard enough?
A. It’s a myriad of things, each one has his own problems. It hasn’t sorted itself out at all in my mind.
Q. Do you think the three guys that are out here (Kimbrough, Ballard and Hall) are capable?
A. Yeah, I think they have the ability. But if they don’t get better, we will play with a freshman.
Q. What happened to Marvin Dingle?
A. He quit.
Q. Is he expected to return? Is he just taking the spring off?
A. Nope. Not when you quit. You don’t do that here with me. When you quit, you quit.
Q. Any injuries of note?
A. Not really, same guys that were hurt before.
Q. How does the quarterback situation look at this point?
A. It’s about like I thought. Some days are better than others.
Q. Just watching the kickers briefly, it appeared that the kid that came over from the sprint football team (Joey Bullen) has a decent leg.
A. Today he did better than the others.
Q. But it’s not that way every day?
A. None of them are consistent right now.

Now, that’s my idea of a football coach!