Another successful fraud investigation has been logged by ex-con Barry Minkow. In addition to the more than $1.8 billion in fraud Minkow is responsible for uncovering, he also proactively discovered faked credentials by several public company executives.

One that caused a big stir was that of Microsemi (NASDAQ:MSCC) CEO James Peterson. This one was interesting because Minkow said that Peterson didn’t have either the bachelors degree or masters degree that he claimed to have from Brigham Young University.

In an interesting twist in the case of the Barry Minkow (Fraud Discovery Institute) fraud investigation of Lennar Corporation (NYSE:LEN)… it appears that Lennar itself has debunked the company’s own lies.

In a new report released today, FDI lays out the original fraud allegations, the lies Lennar used to cover up, and the new admissions which prove the initial allegations were true (and Lennar’s cover up was full of lies).

Here are the details:

An article courtesy of DownsizeDC.org:

John Maynard Keynes originated the idea that government spending could reverse an economic downturn, but even he was skeptical of using government construction projects for this purpose.

Nevertheless, Congress, and people like Paul Krugman, want to spend hundreds of billions on public works.

You don’t have to be a social media guru to attend this event. You can start learning about how social media can benefit you and your company, and participate in a great networking event too…

When: February 6th, 2009
Where: The Luxurious Iron Horse Hotel – 500 S. Florida Streets
Cost: Free
Time: 5:30PM – 9PM
Guest speakers and LIVE DEMO of sohobiztube.com
Door Prizes for those in attendance.

Oops. We’re not really allowed to call it “welfare” anymore. That might hurt someone’s feelings.  Back in the 90′s Wisconsin changed the name from “welfare” to “W2″ (which stands for Wisconsin Works – ha ha ha….)

Wisconsin has long been known as a great place to collect welfare. We’ve had Illinois residents crossing the border for years to collect benefits here. It’s always been easy, so long as they have a Wisconsin address they can use.

It’s no secret that I feel that audits are almost completely ineffective when it comes to verifying the validity of financial statements. Sure, an audit checks the math and some of the obvious applications of the accounting rules. But audits don’t guard against fraud and usually don’t find fraud.

Those who want audits to do that should just keep on wishing. It’s not going to happen.

It’s popular to say that because of the economy, employee theft will go up. While that may happen, there’s actually no way of proving it one way or another. ABC News quoted me in this story: Stealing a Slice of the Company Pie.

I elaborate on these comments in an article I wrote for the Wisconsin Law Journal:  Fraud and the Economy: Correlation or Coincidence?

What is your opinion?

UPDATE: In March 2011, Barry Minkow pleaded guilty to once charge of insider trading related to Lennar Corp., and was later sentenced to prison. I had no knowledge of any of his bad acts relating to Lennar or any other company, and I did not participate in any bad acts. I stand behind all of the work that I did for Mr. Minkow.

I’ve had enough of critics calling Barry Minkow a “self-professed” fraud investigator. These critics act as if there is no evidence that Minkow has successfully investigated fraud… thus he is a “self-professed” fraud uncoverer.

I know from firsthand experience that Barry has successfully investigated many frauds. (Full disclosure: I have been paid by FDI for work I have done related to their investigations, but none of these cases are shown below.) But what if I didn’t know about his investigations? Could I go to third party, independent sources to verify his track record (or lack thereof, as the critics imply) in uncovering fraud?

The Valorem Law Group has created the best disclaimer I’ve ever seen on a law firm’s website. Check it out:

I really don’t understand why  politicians continue to push for a “commuter rail line” between Kenosha and Milwaukee. What’s in it for them? Why lie in order to get it constructed?

This rail line is being pushed as something that will increase commerce and be heavily used by people commuting to work.  The fact is that no one seems to know anyone who will actually be riding the train. No one seems to know anyone who actually wants it or has any substantive proof that it’s needed. And the commerce? Pie-in-the-sky as well. I promise you that these train stops will be near-abandoned and not the hub of any sort of business activity.