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Walt Pavlo, former senior manager in a division of MCI, will speak Tuesday night at King’s College. Pavlo spent two years in prison for his role in defrauding the company of $6 million.
WILKES-BARRE – Walt Pavlo figures it will take 23 years to pay back the millions he stole in six months from his employer.
Pavlo will tell his real-life story of corporate fraud at the very school named after the man who founded MCI, where the misdeeds occurred.
“I have a lot of admiration for him,” Pavlo said of the late William G. McGowan, the Ashley native behind MCI.
The school is sponsoring Pavlo’s lecture Tuesday night in the Burke Auditorium of the William G. McGowan School of Business on the King’s College campus. His 7:30 p.m. lecture is free and open to the public at the auditorium on North River Street.
The talk is part apology. “It offers me that chance to say I’m sorry for my actions,” Pavlo said.
It’s also part Pavlo holding a mirror up to the audience to show them a side they might not want to see; “the human weakness that may be in many of us.”
As a senior manager of billing and collections in a division of MCI, he and others defrauded the company of $6 million over a six-month period, sending the money to the Cayman Islands.
The telecommunications industry in the mid-1990s was “becoming unraveled” with acquisitions, he recalled. Trying to integrate the billing and accounting systems of one company into another was difficult if not impossible.
The pressures on him were enormous, but at the same time the money was easy to be had, he said.
Pavlo was taught the difference between right and wrong. His parents were working class and he was the first one in his family to go to college.
But the world he grew up in bore little resemblance to the corporate environment. “It’s different. The values are different in business,” he said.
Not to paint with too broad a brush, he added, “Business in general, overall it’s really good. Most people do do the right things.”
Back then he did not, however. He put considerable thought into the scheme, convinced himself it wasn’t so wrong and went ahead and did it.
“In my mind I rationalized it, that this is my only opportunity to get ahead,” Pavlo, 44, said.
Rationalization is one of the three main components of white collar crime, Pavlo explained. He counts himself an expert on the subject. The other two are the pressure of the job and the opportunity to carry it out.
“I never had a criminal record before,” he said. “In order to do something wrong, people like us, you have to rationalize it and invent things in your mind to really get yourself to go along with it.”
When he was caught, there was a “feeling of relief, of not having to run anymore,” he said.
He pleaded guilty in 2001, spent two years in prison and nine months ago completed his probation. He owes approximately $5 million in restitution. The money from his lectures helps pay down the balance.
The crime ruined his marriage and other relationships. He has two young sons, adding they’re fine. “We’re recovering.”
He’s formed Etika LLC, based in Tampa, Fla., to help tell his story. Etika means ethics in Slovakian, according to his Web site, www.etikallc.com. He said he does not plan to make a career out of speaking about his experiences. “There comes a time when my time on stage will be done.”
But it’s a story only Pavlo can tell, he said.