Sculley Quits

Sculley Quits — We’re not talking Apple news here any more, but to continue the John Sculley soap opera, Sculley announced last week that he is resigning from Spectrum Information Technologies. Sculley’s rationale was that Spectrum, and specifically Spectrum founder Peter Caserta, misled him about problems at the company when he accepted the position. And, just to show that Sculley believes in the American way (when in doubt, sue), he’s filing a $10 million suit against Caserta "in connection with matters relating to the circumstances under which I was induced to join Spectrum, to my obvious detriment." Apparently, one of the main problems Spectrum failed to tell Sculley about was the SEC inquiry into Spectrum’s potentially dubious reporting of potential earnings after a deal with AT&T (TidBITS #199). Spectrum also appears to believes in the American way (when in doubt, counter-sue), so the company is suing Sculley for more than $300 million in damages. The firm of KPMG Peat Marwick seemingly wants to have nothing to do with any of them, and has resigned as Spectrum’s auditor. The juiciest detail is that three Spectrum insiders sold stock worth $13.2 million when Spectrum’s stock rose precipitously after the news of Sculley’s hiring (it’s since fallen equally precipitously). Tune in next week when we find out how all the money really came from space alien Contra rebels through an S&L.