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by Mike Caswell

The U.S. Department of Justice has filed criminal charges against former Toronto Stock Exchange listing Swisher Hygiene Inc. and a former senior accounting employee for fraudulently inflating the company's adjusted earnings figures in 2011. Prosecutors claim that the employee, John Pierrard, manipulated the company's books over an extended period to hit targets provided by executives. In one quarter alone the manipulated figures boosted adjusted earnings by over $1-million. (All figures are in U.S. dollars.)

The charges were announced on Wednesday, Oct. 27, by prosecutors in North Carolina. In announcing the case, the government also said that it had reached an agreement with Swisher in which the company had agreed to accept responsibility for the fraud and to pay a $2-million penalty. The government has also reached an agreement with Mr. Pierrard in which he has agreed to plead guilty for his role in inflating the company's earnings.

The case comes about three years after accounting trouble first surfaced at Swisher. The company, which provided janitorial services and cleaning chemicals, had to restate its financial results for much of 2011. The restatements included an increase in its first quarter loss to $6-million from $3.2-million.

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