But did he tell the truth? Well……Now, that the clouds caused by Peter Dolan’s tenure as ceo at Bristol-Myers Squibb are no longer lingering, Fred Lacey has decided to speak a bit about his first few moments after walking into the drugmaker’s offices on Park Avenue in Manhattan. The former federal judge, who is senior counsel at LeBoeuf Lamb, a major New York law firm, says he wanted to make sure that Pete understood what was coming.

“When I first came into this job, I met with Peter Dolan and I said – I have a reputation here based on my years as U.S. Attorney and independent court-appointed administrator of the Teamsters,” Lacey tells The Corporate Crime Reporter. “I’m not going to serve here as window dressing, if that’s why you are bringing me in. I’m going to turn over everything I can turn over. If there is anything wrong in this company, I’m going to expose it. Before I sign this agreement, I want to make sure that you know that and that you are absolutely committed in supporting me in this.

And Dolan looked me in the eye….

and said – ‘I know all about you, we have heard of some of the investigations that you have conducted, we know that you are thorough, that you aren’t going to compromise and that you are the person that we want. The Debevoise firm has recommended you. The Cravath firm has recommended you. Our general counsel has recommended you. And that’s why we have decided to retain you.’ ”

“And I told him that I wanted mandates going out to all of the senior management, and in turn to the next level, that they were to cooperate completely with me, making themselves available in person – and making available any documents,” Lacey says. “My job was to ensure that that they were doing things the right way. The first thing that I had to determine was whether I was going to be welcomed or resented by management. They had just come through this horrible period of channel stuffing. They had certain accounting violations.”

“I started out with many interviews – probably 30 interviews of key people,” he continues. “I wanted to determine whether they were going to resent me or welcome me or something in between. It turned out that they were welcoming me, they cooperated right from the beginning. There was embarrassment and anger at what had happened. They of course were not only employees but stockholders of stock that had dropped precipitously. I was able to take the kind of approach where it was benign rather than hostile. It was rather aggressive but not hostile.”

Except toward Dolan, of course.