ABSTRACT
Samuel George Greenspan issued a clean opinion on ZZZZ Best’s 1986 financial statements without ever suspecting that nearly 50 percent of the company’s reported revenues were entirely fictitious. In Greenspan’s mind, he had fulfilled his professional responsibilities by confirming ZZZZ Best’s building restoration contracts with Tom Padgett at Interstate Appraisal Services (IAS) and by reviewing scores of documents supporting ZZZZ Best’s payments to Marbil Marketing. How was he to know that IAS and Marbil were shell companies controlled by Barry Minkow’s accomplices? Greenspan saw his role as verifying that the restoration jobs were accounted for properly-not verifying that the restoration work had been performed in the first place.
