Adelphia Adelphia was founded in 1952 by John Rigas with 300 dollars that he borrowed from his father.

He turned it into the sixth largest cable company in the industry with over five million subscribers. The company grew fast as a result of aggressive acquisitions (Finance professor.com). The company also had other fields of business a telephone company, sports radio station, sports cable channel, and other smaller companies. The company was controlled mainly by the Rigas family; they held five of the board seats. This led to internal problems with the companys financials. In 2002 Adelphia filed for bankruptcy after disclosing that the Rigas family had borrowed 2.3 billion dollars that was left off of the balance sheets. On July 24, 2002 the SEC charged Adelphia and the Rigas family with massive financial fraud. Adelphia was charged with excluding billions of dollars in liabilities from financial statements by hiding them in affiliates books, falsifying books and records, and concealing the Rigases periodic money borrowing (SEC.gov). With the money the Rigas family purchased luxury condos, took a safari, bought corporate jets, and even paid a 700,000 dollar club membership. They just did not know where to draw the line between their money and Adelphias. Adelphia eventually fired their accountants Deloitte & Touch, which they said looked the other way when checking the financial records. Pricewaterhouse Coopers was the next best thing. Adelphia is still operational without the Rigas family at the helm. The headquarters was moved from Coudersport, PA to Denver. Adelphia is now owned by Comcast and Time Warner; they paid a hefty price of 18 billion combined to acquire the five million extra subscribers. The 18 billion was cash and stock.

There were four employees on trial for the financial catastrophe at Adelphia each was looking at 23 total counts of various frauds. John Rigas his son Timothy Rigas, another son Michael Rigas and the former assistant treasurer Michael Mulcahey. Michael Rigas was found not guilty on six counts of conspiracy and wire fraud, and the jury was undecided on the other seventeen counts of securities and bank fraud. Michael Mulcahey was found not guilty on all charges. John Rigas was found guilty of eighteen counts of conspiracy, bank and securities fraud not guilty on five wire fraud counts he was sentenced to fifteen years in prison. Timothy Rigas was convicted on the same counts he got twenty years (academic.udayton.edu). Works Cited http://www.financeprofessor.com/Adelphia/adelphia_communications%202.19.04.htm http://www.sec.gov/news/press/2002-110.htm http://academic.udayton.edu/lawrenceulrich/AdelphiaConvictions.htm