This is such a fantastic read that I limited my reading to an hour a day so I’d have more days to enjoy it. It’s hard to believe that a five-year legal controversy over arcane FDA rules would be interesting. But Mr. Root and his ghost writer Stephen Saltarelli make it so. They tell the story through Mr. Root’s eyes so that you’ll relive every day as he lived it.
Mr. Root, long-time CEO of Vascular Solutions (he founded the company) faced prison if convicted of “conspiracy to commit improper medical device labeling.” Mr. Root reveals himself to be a tough, no-nonsense CEO. He’s also a regular guy who was put under extreme duress by government prosecutors who manipulated the legal system to try to destroy his company and put him in prison.
He brings to life the terror of living through five long years of waiting for his, and his company’s, fates to be decided in court. Not only was he distracted from running his business, but the legal cost of $25,000,000 ate deep into his company’s profits.
Being a publicly traded company, he could have been ousted at any moment if the stockholders decided that he had become too much a liability. He endured “hit pieces” in the press, unethical prosecutor misconduct, and the uncertainly of not knowing if the board of directors would decide that the company’s best interests required pitching him overboard and into prison.
He relates those harrowing days in a witty, devilishly sarcastic style that makes the book such fun to read.
The first thing I wanted to know is whether the story was true. Mr. Root’s story came to my attention through his articles in the Wall Street Journal. The WSJ often publishes articles that portray companies as victims of Federal prosecutorial abuse. These WSJ stories are not always entirely accurate. They often portray companies and their CEO’s as paragons of virtue. Then you google up the details and discover that criminal misconduct justified the prosecutions.
Being an old-timer of a business person, I have successfully instigated civil suits and criminal charges against companies. (I never gratuitously make trouble for anybody; these actions were justified, and I prevailed in court.) My wife has also been a star witness for the Federal Government’s prosecution of a corrupt business owner. I never assume that companies and their CEO’s are innocent victims of federal prosecution. Odds are they're guilty.
I researched Mr. Root’s story to see if he was as innocent as he claimed. Turns out he was. His story is easy to fact-check because he uses the real names of his employees, lawyers, government prosecutors, and judges. He identifies the (relatively few) people who were courageous and honest, and those who were lazy, incompetent, and corrupt. I can imagine Mr. Root’s lawyer telling him, “Don’t write that! You’ll risk a defamation suit!” Mr. Root had to be rock solid confident that he was writing a true story that would pass the truth-o-meter if challenged in a defamation suit.
The story begins when disgruntled ex-employees decided to whip up a “whistleblower” suit in hopes of reaping a 20% reward from fines recovered by a successful Federal Government prosecution. At that time, in 2009, the Feds were being ridiculed by the public for giving a free pass to bankers who torpedoed the economy with fraudulent financial schemes. The Feds were looking for a corporate victim to make an example of. When the “whistleblower” suit with criminal allegations against Mr. Root and Vascular Systems came along, they pounced on it. For the next five years Mr. Root wondered whether the end result would be his exoneration or spending his golden years in the Crowbar Hotel.
Here’s what I learned from the case:
1. Why it costs millions of dollars to hire lawyers. The complexity of bargaining with federal prosecutors for a pre-trial settlement, then going through a grand jury, and then to jury trial are mind-boggling. Hundreds of lawyers, some billing up to $1,000 an hour, defended Mr. Root and Vascular Solutions.
2. Federal prosecutors have overbearing power to coerce witnesses into making false statements. During the Grand Jury phase of pre-trial, the prosecution coerced employees into making false statements by lying to them about the testimony of other witnesses interviewed separately. “Jane and Bob have testified that Mr. Root is guilty. You’d better testify that way too, or we’ll put YOU on trial.” During the trial the prosecution witnesses discover they’ve been lied to. “If you change your testimony now, we’ll prosecute you for perjury,” threaten the prosecutors. The judge who heard Mr. Root’s case had a prior record of hearing cases that resulted in 99.5% convictions. That’s hardly the defendant’s theoretical right to be “innocent until proven guilty.”
3. Government regulations are chilling not only because of compliance costs, but because the violation, or perceived violation, of even the minutest regulation can send a CEO to jail and the company to bankruptcy. Perhaps our best people are deterred from going into business for fear of prosecution by pettifogging government regulators and prosecutors.
Mr. Root had the courage to fight for five years to be exonerated rather than knuckle under to the government’s extortionate threats to blackmail him into a plea bargain for a lesser sentence. A few of his employees stood with courage to testify for him, while others were twisted by prosecutors into testifying that he conspired to sell life-threatening medical devices under false pretenses.
You wouldn’t think this sort of thing could happen in the USA, but it does. Read Mr. Root’s opus magnum and enjoy learning how the law works in practice vs. theory. It’ll enlighten you to understand verdicts that seem bizarre, plus give you a heads up, if, God forbid, you ever find yourself in a prosecutor’s sights.
Cardiac Arrest: Five Heart-Stopping Years as a CEO On the Feds' Hit-List
Audible Audiobook
– Unabridged
See all formats and editions
Hide other formats and editions
|
Price
|
New from | Used from |
|
Audible Audiobook, Unabridged
"Please retry"
|
$0.00
|
Free with your Audible trial | |
Read & Listen
Switch between reading the Kindle book & listening to the Audible narration with
Whispersync for Voice.
Get the Audible audiobook for the reduced price of $7.49 after you buy the Kindle book.
Get the Audible audiobook for the reduced price of $7.49 after you buy the Kindle book.
Sold and delivered by Audible, an Amazon company
Loading your book clubs
There was a problem loading your book clubs. Please try again.
Not in a club?
Learn more
Join or create book clubs
Choose books together
Track your books
Bring your club to Amazon Book Clubs, start a new book club and invite your friends to join, or find a club that’s right for you for free.
People who bought this also bought
Page 1 of 1Start OverPage 1 of 1
- Audible Audiobook
- Audible Audiobook
- Audible Audiobook
- Audible Audiobook
- Audible Audiobook
|
|
|
|
|---|---|---|
|
|
|
|
Customer reviews
Top reviews from the United States
There was a problem filtering reviews right now. Please try again later.
Reviewed in the United States on February 22, 2017
Verified Purchase
A Warning to Aspiring Entrepreneurs and Society at Large: The Abuse of the Justice System to Advance Political Aspirations
Reviewed in the United States on February 8, 2018Verified Purchase
Reviewed in the United States on February 23, 2017
Verified Purchase
Top reviews from other countries
Steve Pye
Great book!
Reviewed in Canada on February 22, 2018Verified Purchase
