In 2007, the FBI reported 529 pending cases of corporate fraud. Justin Paperny is a man who knows quite a bit about this.

Paperny committed fraud in 2007 and spent 18 months in prison for this crime. Over a year since his release, Paperny will speak to students in Lumpkin Hall on business ethics and ways to avoid the mistakes he made.

The School of Business and the International Honor Society Beta Gamma Sigma is sponsoring the presentation, which will take place at 3:30 p.m. and 7:30 p.m in Lumpkin Hall, Room 2030.

Paperny was sent to prison for scheming with his colleagues and superiors to protect them from any potential liability while he was overseeing a client’s hedge fund.

Paperny worked as a stockbroker for a number of firms including Merrill Lynch, Bear Stearns and UBS.

James Sysko, the assistant professor of management, invited Paperny to speak after seeing his presentation at King’s College in Pennsylvania.

Sysko said in the past two years, Paperny has become a much more prominent speaker, compared to when he first heard him.

During the presentation, Paperny will talk about “how even traditional students, like himself can fall into the pitfalls of a new career,” Sysko said.

While serving his sentence, Paperney wrote Lessons from Prison. And since then he has released another book, Ethics in Motion.

Paperny will also discuss how “many people who commit fraud don’t even realize it,” Sysko said. “It’s so easy to get caught up in a fraud without any personal knowledge.”

Another pitfall to watch out for is the HYPERLINK “http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/effortlessness”effortlessness of turning a cheek to what others are doing, becoming part of the problem, Sysko said.

Sysko points out that getting caught up in fraud or just losing sight of a person’s ethics can happen in every career, not just in the business field.

“People start to focus on money, and how to make their portfolio look best, so they fudge a number here and there thinking there is nothing wrong with it, but it is actually a huge question of ethics,” Sysko said.

Another highlight of the presentation will be a discussion of “white-collar crime.”

In his book, White Collar Crime, Edwin H Sutherland said white-collar crime “may be defined approximately as a crime committed by a person of respectability and high social status in the course of his occupation.”

Sysko added criminals convicted of white-collar crimes “don’t go to ‘Club Fed,’ they still go through what every other criminal goes through.”

As a part of his federal probation, Paperny has made presentations at universities all over the country including New York University, Pennsylvania State University, Wake Forest University, DePaul University, University of South Carolina and Pepperdine University.

Along with Tuesday’s presentations, Paperny will be conducting numerous in-class presentations on Wednesday.

Kaylia Eskew can be reached at 581-7942 or kbeskew@eiu.edu .