SiliconBeat

Last week’s criminal conviction of former Brocade Communications CEO Gregory Reyes, on charges relating to options backdating, was not as big a bombshell as the results of his first trial in 2007, when dozens of other Silicon Valley companies were still smarting from examinations of their own stock options practices.

Reyes’ conviction on nine counts of securities fraud and submitting false statements - he was acquitted on a conspiracy count - came after the results of his first trial were overturned last year on appeal. Meanwhile, experts say that heightened scrutiny and new regulations have clamped down on options abuses.

But there have been some ripples of fall-out this week. The Hill, a politics newsletter in Washington D.C., is reporting that national Democratic Party officials are attempting to make hay with Reyes’ conviction by calling attention to $75,000 that he donated over the previous decade to GOP causes.

A Democratic National Committee staffer blasted her Republican counterparts for keeping the donations, claiming that Reyes “defrauded the public using the same irresponsible tactics that sparked the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression,” according to The Hill.

In politics, of course, appearances count. The Hill also reported that the DNC has announced it will give $505 to charity after it was pointed out that Barack Obama’s presidential campaign was given that amount in 2008 by a man recently charged with threatening to kill Republican U.S. Rep. Eric Cantor of Virginia.

Brocade Communications dropped word into its quarterly 10-Q financial filing with the SEC today of an examination by the Internal Revenue Service of the  last two tax returns filed by Foundry Networks, whose sale to Brocade was finalized Dec. 18.

The examinations, covering both the 2007 and 2006 tax years, began earlier this month. “As the audit has just begun,” the company reported, Read the rest of this entry »