WASHINGTON (AFX) - Adelphia Communications Corp. said Wednesday that Ronald Cooper, the company's president and chief operating officer, resigned for 'good reason.'
Adelphia said Cooper's resignation Thursday was triggered by the conclusion of the sale of the company's cable properties to Comcast Corp. and Time Warner Inc. on July 31, according to a regulatory filing released by the Securities and Exchange Commission.
The sale to Time Warner and Comcast brought $12.5 billion in cash and a 16 percent stake in Time Warner Cable to Adelphia.
U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Robert Gerber recently approved a $10.2 million bonus payment to Cooper for his involvement in closing the sale. The cable provider has been operating under Chapter 11 protection in the Manhattan bankruptcy court since June 2002.
According to Adelphia's 2003 annual report, Cooper was appointed in March of that year to 'implement new internal controls and procedures designed, among other things, to prevent a recurrence of the improper acts that allegedly occurred during the tenure of Rigas Management.'
Following the resignation of members of the founding Rigas family, the company reviewed its past public disclosures, books, and records, as well as its accounting practices, the annual report said. Adelphia found that various records and financial statements for the years ended Dec. 31, 1999 and 2000, were misstated.
Prior to joining Adelphia, Cooper was chief operating officer of AT&T Broadband from October 2001 to November 2002, where he was responsible for the operational management of all of the company's functional and geographical units and directed AT&T Broadband's video, voice and data businesses, the annual report said.
Adelphia founder John Rigas and his son Timothy were convicted in 2004 of pocketing more than $2 billion from Adelphia for their personal use and misleading investors about the company's finances and performance. Timothy Rigas, the company's one-time chief financial officer, was sentenced to 20 years in prison, while his father was sentenced to 15 years in prison. Both men remain free on bail pending appeal.
John Rigas, who is suffering from bladder cancer, can have his sentence modified after two years if he is diagnosed as having three months or less to live.
In November, Michael J. Rigas, Adelphia's one-time executive vice president, pleaded guilty to making a false entry in the company's records. He was sentenced in March to 10 months of home confinement.
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