Is Jerkoff Jobs Untouchable? Investors sue to find out

Don't get us wrong, constant readers, we're delighted this mess has a chance of being cleared up. We're rubbing our hands that Jobs will be forced to come down from that throne and face the music. But we get a little uneasy when we see that the sharks have smelled blood in the water.

Even as Apple Computer shifts its focus to the annual Macworld conference next week in San Francisco, the Cupertino maker of Macintosh computers and iPod digital media players still faces fallout from the unfolding scandal surrounding its widespread manipulation of stock options.

The latest threat comes in the form of a shareholder lawsuit filed against Apple executives and directors in federal district court in San Jose, the highlight of which is a slew of options granted in 1997 to top executives right before a crucial $150 million bailout of the struggling computer-maker by Microsoft Corp.

The lawsuit claims such stock-options shenanigans began with Jobs' return to Apple in the mid-1990s. A six-month investigation led by former Vice President Al Gore and a committee of Apple's outside directors found irregularities in the way Apple awarded options, which bolsters that claim, contends Mark Molumphy, a partner at Cotchett, Pitre, Simon & McCarthy, the lead law firm in the shareholder suit.

Apple declined to comment. The investigation cleared Jobs and the current management team of any wrongdoing.

Potentially more troublesome to Apple are twin investigations by the U.S. attorney's office in San Francisco and the Securities and Exchange Commission. But Apple gained a key tactical advantage with its "unabashed" defense of Jobs that got a euphoric reaction from Wall Street, putting pressure on the government to tread carefully, crisis management expert Eric Dezenhall said.

"Now it's up to prosecutors and regulators to demonstrate that they have a real legitimate beef," he said. "They have to ask themselves if this is a fight worth having."

Federal regulators and prosecutors refused to comment on their investigations.

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2007/01/04/BUGDBNCBRA1.DTL