McKinley Case Study

As a CFO, people looked up to him and respected him. McKinley didn’t see this though. He saw his life as minimal and wants to better it with more money. He liked the attention from his coworkers when he bragged about his fortunes. Most fraud cases end up like this. Greed takes over and the person just wants more and more. His first mistake was investing all his money into one business. Every accountant knows that’s not safe and it should be spread out amongst various businesses or stocks. After the business went sour, he was humiliated and couldn’t admit his mistake so he had to build up a plan. Greed and financial pressure were the motives to drive him forward into a scheme to protect his image and self pride. As a CFO, he couldn’t let people, let alone the banks, know that he could not manage his money or run a business. McKinley has the opportunity to plan and go through with a scheme because he was the CFO. He had the power, the control and the knowledge of how the money was handled at this company. He was able to enter journals entries and override them as well. He was the last person to see the entries which made it easy for him to change it after other employees. McKinley also was involved in setting up the internal control system there, so he was very familiar with the operations and knew how to get around the system without anyone knowing. McKinley rationalized his plan with the thought that he wasn’t doing anything wrong. He could take money, make entries and write off amounts with no questions asked. He was in control of the accounts and the chance of being caught was slim to none. He was the CFO and had sole authorization to complete and adjust any and all transactions. Most people who decide to steal from companies know to hide the entries in high volume accounts. McKinley did just that with hopes that it would be overlooked and lost. The other problem was the entries he made into his own personal bank account. When some kind of theft