In 1982, Control Video Corporation was the beginning of AOL. William von Meister was the founder and it consisted of an online service called Gameline for the Atari 2600 video game. The company almost went bankrupt in 1983 and Jim Kimsey came in as a manufacturing consultant to help the small company. Kimsey became the Chief Executive Officer and renamed the company Quantum Computer Service in 1985. Kimsey silently dropped Meister from the company and named Steve Case, formerly hired as a marketing manager, as vice-president of marketing. After Kimsey retired in 1991, Case took over as CEO. By this time, Kimsey had changed the company’s strategy. In 1988, Quantum joined Apple and they launched AppleLink Personal Edition. After parting with Apple in October 1989, Quantum changed its name to America Online (AOL).
AOL is now a program that allows its users access to the internet through their browser and search engine. In January 2001, AOL merged with Time Warner and is now called AOL Time Warner. Its theme, “You Got Mail,” has helped its reputation grow globally. With this stated, it is understandable that many top-level executives and other management employees have been tempted to maneuver some illicit transactions for their own benefit and enrich their personal account. A few years ago, AOL was exploited for their creative accounting practices. We will further discuss two fraudulent cases that have occurred to AOL.
Gregory Horton was the Executive Vice President of human resources at AOL in Dulles, Va. from November 2002 until August 2003. Horton served as the consignor, along with his consignee, Ruben Moreno. They both initiated special charges when they were involved in a wire-fraud transaction in connection with the theft of more than $2.3 million betwe ...