Ex-Billionaire Gets 7 1/2-Year Sentence for Defrauding Investors Goldman, Google

“Outcome’s former executives deceived their clients, their auditor, their lenders, and their investors for years,” Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General Nicole M. Argentieri, head of the Justice Department’s Criminal Division, said in the statement.

“Their sentences should serve as yet another reminder that ‘faking it until you make it’ is not an acceptable practice for any business,” Argentieri said.

Shah told the judge last week in a prepared statement that he was “ashamed and embarrassed” by his failure to properly manage the company’s aggressive push for growth, which led to “a number of fatal mistakes” that included not tracking the delivery of ads paid for by clients.

“The culture I created permissioned people on my team to think it was okay to create false data in response to client questions,” he said in the statement, which was filed with the court.

Shah was convicted in April 2023 along with Outcome President and co-founder Shradha Agarwal and Chief Financial Officer Brad Purdy. Prosecutors had sought 10-year sentences for Agarwal, 38, and Purdy, 35. But Durkin sentenced Agarwal to three years in a half-way house and Purdy got two years and three months in prison.

A group of funds, including those owned by Goldman, Alphabet and Pritzker, were among the investors that sued Outcome in 2017, claiming fraud tied to a $487.5 million fundraising that year that led to a $225 million dividend pocketed by Shah and Agarwal.

In addition, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission sued Shah, Agarwal, Purdy and former chief growth officer Ashik Desai, claiming they used false financial statements to raise cash. Desai and two other Outcome employees pleaded guilty to charges before the criminal trial against the company’s top executives.

The criminal case is U.S. v. Shah, 19-cr-00864, U.S. District Court, Northern District of Illinois (Chicago).

(Credit: Adobe Stock)