Jobs Subpoenaed for Deposition

Buck, what buck?. The Jerk must have passed it along…….

If can believe the good folks at Bloomberg (and mostly we do) Apple Inc.’s chief jerkoff, Jobs, was subpoenaed by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission to give a deposition in a backdating lawsuit against the company's former general counsel, two people familiar with the matter said.

The subpoena isn't part of an SEC investigation, one of the people said. It seeks Jobs's testimony in the SEC's lawsuit against Nancy Heinen, who was sued April 24 for allegedly backdating stock-option grants to Jobs and members of his executive team, said the people, who requested anonymity because deposition subpoenas aren't made public.

Heinen was sued for allegedly backdating a 7.5 million share-option grant to Jobs in 2001 and an earlier grant to his executive team. Jobs recommended some favorable dates on options other than his own, Apple said Dec. 29. Heinen's lawyers sought to depose 45 people, including the recipients of the grants, according to a court filing.

``These include the range of individuals involved in the stock option granting'' at Apple, including ``the grant recipients themselves,'' according to an Aug. 31 document filed by the SEC and Heinen's lawyers in federal court in San Francisco.

Steve Dowling, an Apple spokesman, declined to comment. Mark Pomerantz, an attorney for Jobs, didn't return a call to his office after normal business hours. Marc Fagel, an SEC attorney in San Francisco, declined to comment.

The SEC alleges Heinen directed her staff to prepare documents that falsely stated the company's board approved the grants on the earlier date, the SEC said in its lawsuit. She has denied the claims. Deposition testimony is used at trial or during evidence gathering. Miles Ehrlich, Heinen's attorney, didn't respond to a message left after business hours.

The SEC said April 24 that it wouldn't sue Apple over the backdated options and declined to say whether the investigation of the Cupertino, California-based company was still active. Apple found ``no misconduct'' by Jobs and said he wasn't aware of the accounting implications of backdated options, the company said in December.

Stock options allow holders to buy shares at a later date, usually at the trading price on the day the options were granted. Through backdating, companies retroactively change the grant date to a day with a lower stock price, giving recipients built-in profits. Unless disclosed and recorded as an expense, the practice is illegal because it hides costs from shareholders and regulators.

Heinen was general counsel at Jobs's software firm Next Inc. starting in 1994 and moved with him to Apple, where he became CEO in 1997 after the company bought Next. Heinen quit in May 2006.

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