10.
Dennis Kozlowski
CEO Tyco
![Tyco-1](http://listverse.files.wordpress.com/2012/07/tyco-1.jpg?w=550&h=414)
Kozlowski’s business career appeared to be a brilliant one complete
with a rags-to-riches storyline. After growing up on the wrong side of
the tracks, Kozlowski eventually rose to the position of CEO with Tyco.
Greed and a lack of moral direction led Kozlowski to siphon off $600
million in company funds for his own use. His excesses included $6,000
shower curtains, lavish parties on the company dime (one pictured
above), and false bonuses he claimed were given at the direction of the
Board of Directors. Kozlowski is serving a term of no less than eight
years, with a maximum of 25, in prison. Tyco survived Kozlowski’s reign.
9
Richard Scrushy
CEO HealthSouth
![Scrushy Richard Cp 7949890](http://listverse.files.wordpress.com/2012/07/scrushy_richard_cp_7949890.jpg?w=262&h=400)
Richard Scrushy’s evil practices while in charge of HealthSouth are
almost too numerous to list. He was twice charged with 30 counts each of
illegal practices while acting as CEO for HealthSouth. His crimes
include authorizing the termination of whistleblowers, bribery,
fraudulent accounting practices, extortion, money laundering, and mail
fraud among others. Although he managed to avoid jail in 2003 on the
first 30 counts, he was later convicted on 30 different charges in 2007
and sentenced to six years and 10 months in prison. HealthSouth survived
Scrushy’s abuses.
8
Joe Nacchio
CEO Qwest Communications
![Joe-Nacchio2Jpg-55216D74Ec6737Dd Large](http://listverse.files.wordpress.com/2012/07/joe-nacchio2jpg-55216d74ec6737dd_large.jpg?w=550&h=365)
While serving as the CEO of Qwest, Joe Nacchio exhibited a penchant
for fabricating the truth to his benefit, and his alone. Nacchio’s lies
included inflated revenue claims and false reports of nonexistent
upcoming government contracts. He also profited illegally from a run-up
in Qwest stock prices. Nacchio was slapped with a $19 million fine,
ordered to forfeit $52 million made from illegal trading, and sentenced
to six years in prison. Nacchio began serving his term in 2009 and Qwest
was eventually acquired by CenturyLink Communications.
7
Sanjay Kumar
CEO Computer Associates
![Sanjay-Kumar-Sm](http://listverse.files.wordpress.com/2012/07/sanjay-kumar-sm.jpg?w=323&h=400)
Kumar was the former CEO of Computer Associates who began defrauding
the company before 2000. His relatively simple practices included
backdating contracts and even adding a week to accounting periods, known
as the “35 day month.” Kumar’s crimes might not seem evil, but the
extent of his fraud is staggering. Kumar and his accomplices defrauded
Computer Associates of $2.2 billion over a period of several years.
Kumar was sentenced to 12 years in prison while the company was renamed.
6
Jeffrey Skilling
Chairman at Enron Corporation
![2006 5 Enron1](http://listverse.files.wordpress.com/2012/07/2006_5_enron1.jpg?w=550&h=412)
As a big power player at Enron, Skilling encouraged the questionable
accounting tactic known as mark-to-market. It allowed Enron to make
overly optimistic values for energy prices by appraising company
holdings based upon expected values. Skilling also signed off on the
creation of an Enron subsidiary called Chewco, which was little more
than a dumping ground for Enron’s debt. Skilling was sentenced to 24
years and 4 months in prison. Enron eventually collapsed, taking with it
the jobs and life-savings of thousands of employees.
5
Kenneth Lay
CEO at Enron Corporation
![Svlay Narrowweb 300X443,0](http://listverse.files.wordpress.com/2012/07/svlay_narrowweb__300x4430.jpg?w=270&h=400)
Lay was Skilling’s partner in crime as the two cooked the books at
Enron, grossly over valuing the holdings of the company over the course
of a number of years. Lay’s actions, like those of Skilling, led to the
largest bankruptcy in U.S. history when Enron Corporation failed in
2001. Lay’s underhanded moves cost 20,000 Enron employees their jobs and
numerous life savings accounts that were tied to company stocks.
4
Robert Rubin
Chairman at Goldman Sachs
![Robert-Rubin](http://listverse.files.wordpress.com/2012/07/robert-rubin.jpg?w=314&h=400)
Robert Rubin might be one of the few men who can be directly linked
to the 2008 financial collapse that struck the economies of the world.
Rubin wriggled his way into the Treasury Secretary position under
President Bill Clinton and helped usher in one of the greatest
deregulatory eras in U.S. history. Rubin’s works, including the end of
the Glass-Steagall Law, made it possible for economically essential
banks to gamble taxpayer dollars on volatile stock markets. Those
actions allowed the formation of CitiGroup and other “too-big-to-fail”
banks and financial institutions. Rubin earned $120 million working for
Citi while the bank piled up bad investment after bad investment,
eventually requiring a $45 billion government bailout.
3
Walton Family
Wal-Mart
![Debbie](http://listverse.files.wordpress.com/2012/07/debbie.jpg?w=550&h=309)
Sam Walton and his brother founded Wal-Mart in 1962 and today that
company is the largest private employer in the world as well as the
largest retailer in the world. For all its wealth, an estimated $421
billion, it has an equal number of evil practices attributable to it.
Wal-Mart is most often accused of treating employees like a commodity,
and no act better proves that than the case of 52 year-old Deborah
Shank.
After becoming paralyzed in a collision with a semi, Shank’s family
was awarded $700,000 in damages. The resulting $417,000 the family
received after legal expenses was taken away by Wal-Mart. The company
sued Shank for $470,000 because her employment contract stipulated any
damages won by an employee were property of the company. This left her
family to care for her with only the assistance of Medicaid and Social
Security payments.
2
Hermann von Siemens
Siemens AG
![Herm-V-Siemens](http://listverse.files.wordpress.com/2012/07/herm-v-siemens.jpg?w=252&h=400)
Hermann von Siemens was the CEO of Siemens during World War II. The
atrocities of the business begin before the war however. Siemens was a
major player in helping the Nazi party rebuild the German Army, improve
infrastructure, and eventually help put in place the mechanisms that
drove the Holocaust.
During World War II, with von Siemens in charge, the company’s worst
acts included operating factories at the infamous concentration camps of
Auschwitz and Buchenwald. Jewish slave labor was used in both factories
to create electrical switches for military use. Those same slave
laborers would later meet a grisly end inside of Siemens-built gas
chambers operated at both camps.
1
Leopold II, King of the Belgians
Head of Congo Free State
![Hm-King-Leopold-Ii-Dr-Tibor-M-Celler](http://listverse.files.wordpress.com/2012/07/hm-king-leopold-ii-dr-tibor-m-celler.jpg?w=256&h=400)
Leopold II used the Conference of Berlin in 1884 to acquire the Congo
region of Africa. He established a private company under the guise of a
nation called the Congo Free State. Leopold exercised full control of
the country as head of the private organization and used a private force
of soldier, tax collectors, and gangs to gather up the ivory and rubber
resources of the region for the sake of profit.
The atrocities of Leopold’s forces are too numerous to list. In
short, his troops forced locals into slave labor collecting ivory, and
later rubber, for the company to sell. Laborers who didn’t meet quotas
were killed, families of laborers were held as collateral to ensure
workers performed up to expectations, and hands were chopped off as
proof that under-performers were executed.
At the time Leopold established the Congo Free State, Africa’s
population was estimated to have been between 90 and 130 million. Under
his control, some 10 to 22 million people were murdered. European
countries finally forced Leopold to cede the Congo Free State to the
government of Belgium in 1908, but Leopold would never answer for his
crimes. He died as the wealthiest man in Europe and spent his massive
profits on yachts, homes, and teenage prostitutes.
Evil comes in many shades. Some of the men on this list may not seem
evil, but is lying, defrauding, and profiting illegal not an evil
activity? After all, if an act needs to be lied about and hidden is it a
good deed? Other people unquestionably earned their position on this
list by sanctioning murder and genocide. This list shows, if nothing
else, that evil comes in many forms and a lack of direct connection does
not wash an individual’s hands of evil activities.
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