Pfizer Exec Charged With Child Pornography
23 CommentsBy Ed Silverman // March 28th, 2008 // 2:53 pm
Federal agents have charged Pfizer’s global patent director with receiving, distributing and possessing child pornography and are holding him without bond, The Day reports. Alan Hesketh, who lives in Stonington, Connecticut, is accused of posing as a 28-year-old female while trading hundreds of images of children engaged in sexual acts.
He allegedly traded the images with a man from Buffalo, while chatting with him online between June 2006 and May 2007. The two men discussed, “among other things, the sexual molestation of children involving the use of human defecation,” according to a court document, cited by the newspaper. Hesketh allegedly used the screen name “Suzibibaby” during the online sessions.
Federal agents say Hesketh, who is a vice president and global head of patents, signed on as “Suzibibaby” from his home and from several other Internet addresses, including one registered to Pfizer in New York and another at the Tudor Hotel at the United Nations, where he was a guest for three days in December 2007
A Pfizer spokeswoman tells the paper that that Hesketh, whose office is in New London, Connecticut, is on a leave of absence. “Pfizer will cooperate with authorities in any investigation.” If indicted and convicted, Hesketh faces a mandatory minimum of five years in prison and maximum term of 20 years for receiving and distributing child pornography and a maximum of 10 years in prison for possession of child porn. He also faces as much as $500,000 in fines, the paper writes.
Lisa Van S
Maybe he’ll use the zoloft defense…
HorusCat
Maybe we should just…you know…to him.
pg
Maybe he will use the ZOLOFT DEFENSE manual.
Donna
Maybe he’ll just get 30 yr’s to think about it….
Bobby C
Sleaze-bag — probably a lot more in the pharma industry.
Chris
That’s profound. His place of employment means absolutely nothing. His actions do.
Atlex
Ed, I question the relevance of this as news on a pharma industry blog. If he was an officer of the company it would be one thing.
Chris II
I almost agree with Atlex. However, with the General Counsel of Pfizer recently stepping down for reasons subject to enormous gossip and rumor and now with the lead patent lawyer being forced to take a leave, I think the real story here connects more broadly to the politics, scandals and house cleaning that has been underway at Pfizer since Kindler took over. A substantial number of very senior leaders have been pushed out or left. This is just the latest chapter, albeit a sort of scandalous one. Time will be the test as to whether Kindler’s leadership has lead to positive change or whether internal politics and scandal have left the pharma giant in the hands of less competent and less visionary “leaders.” It is news if you follow Pfizer and wonder who is leading the company. I was at Pfizer for almost 15 years and virtually every person there that I respected and admired — perhaps not for their compassion or caring but for their brilliance — has been pushed out or left. The specifics of this case are not genuine phrma news, but as one piece of the pfizer leadership changes it is a story. In the last few weeks, the two most senior lawyers at Pfizer have been forced to step down suddenly and prematurely. If I was a major shareholder, I would care.
M. Scott
Atlex, really, you haven’t found another blog yet. I keep checking back a couple times a month to see if things have changed. This was a GREAT blog the first couple of months on startup……. sad to see this is what it has become.
Ed Silverman
Hi M. Scott and Atlex,
I understand your point. However, I attempt to cover a wide mix of topics on this site, including executive changes and doings. And to my mind, that includes items that are about execs. I agree that, on the surface, this episode appears to have nothing to do with Pfizer or patents or pharma.
However, given this fellow’s position, it may be of interest to others in the company or the industry what is happening to execs with positions of influence. I debated with myself for a few hours whether to run this, in fact. I was aware of it several hours before posting. I later noticed the story was moving on at least one wire and other sites, and then decided that since it was out there, I would go with my initial judgement, which I just mentioned - its about a Pfizer exec.
And M. Scott, with all due respect, this site has, for more than a year, offered items - news, commentary, interviews - that are about various topics. These would include preemption, pricing, patent reform, safety, promotion, compulsory licensing ceo pay, FDA reform, biogenerics… There’s a long list of subjects, just as in any newspaper. I try to cover a lot of bases that are of interest to a broad swath of people. You’re free to disagree with my news judgement. I expect that from time to time. But I would suggest this site always has enough to offer anyone who is looking for a big picture.
Hope this helps and thanks for stopping by.
Regards
ed
Matt
I am sure this guy is just a run of the mill average representative for the kind of people that work in the phrama industry.
I mean what other kind of people would sleep at night knowing the drugs theyy help produce and sell are killing people by the thousands? Only perverts and criminals can survive in an industry like that.
Former pharma Marketing Exec
This is an important story to tell us. In fact, if I didn’t see it here, I would have questioned Ed about it.
What is puzzling to me is that every major pharma company I worked for required every middle and upper management person to undergo psychological testing. There were also on going leadership building work shops. How is it that this type of behavior didn’t show up somewhere? Additionally he signed on using the Pfizer computers - wouldn’t IT have known, surely someone in Pfizer knew about this?
Atlex
FPME,
I think you are mistaken. Having worked in and around the industry for 20 years or more, I’ve never received psychological testing of this type nor has anyone else I’m aware of. I have been tested for the type of worker or manager I am in order to improve my performance, but nothing that would even approach my full psychological profile. This really makes me question the legitimacy of your claim.
As for signing on via company computers, if Pfizer is like anyplace else, if he uses a company server, there are ways for the company to block most websites but not most emails. In addition, out of work use of the computer without signing on to a company’s server is also possible. And, as my kids have shown me, for a motivated person it’s possible to find workarounds for almost anything an employer might throw in the way.
Bob Freeman
Atlex, my same experience also–tested for management skills but never a full psychological profile. Some companies at which I’ve worked use full profiling for the field sales force but not for HQ.
Former pharma Marketing Exec
My experience in upper management and full psychological testing is pretty current - within the past three years.
Altex, you are right about finding ways around the websites. I suppose signing on using a proxy… But he didn’t seem to do that in this case, as the article stated that he used the company’s computers. Wouldn’t that imply that he wasn’t using a proxy?
HorusCat
Former,
Would someone in legal necessarily undergo that kind of testing? How good are those tests at digging out that kind of proclivity? (My sister just took the MMPI, I’ll have to ask her if any of the questions seemed to point to rooting out that kind of sexual orientation.)
What I wonder about is the same thing that the Eliot Spitzer situation stimulated me to think about–do these guys just think they won’t get caught?
Atlex
FPME, as I said, one can use a company computer while at home and never go through the company’s server. The only way for the company to detect this would be if they did a full scan of the computer looking for something in specific. A mid-level manager might get his/her computer scanned relative to a legal case, but the company may or may not detect unrelated files.
No proxy would have been needed.
Former pharma Marketing Exec
Horus,
Lets just say that the type of testing at the director level could raise a flag. HR and legal are very involved in the process at the director level. Having worked my way up through sales and having gone through similar testing in sales, HR and legal were also involved.
That being said, I can’t even speculate what it takes for a person to conceal that part of their identity.
And yes, like you I have often wondered why they think they will get away with it? But you know what they say absolute power corrupts absolutely.
Altex,
The point is, the article states that they know he used the company’s computer, and internet server as it states: “Federal agents say Hesketh, who is a vice president and global head of patents, signed on as “Suzibibaby” from his home and from several other Internet addresses, including one registered to Pfizer in New York and another at the Tudor Hotel at the United Nations, where he was a guest for three days in December 2007″ so, Pfizer had to be aware of this and if not, they certainly would have been advised.
Probably memo’s being issued to the IT department in many organizations (not just Pharma) to tighten up security and monitor everyone’s activity.
Bob Freeman
Psychological testing must vary among companies. I and several of my friends/colleagues rose to executive directors or VPs and were never tested.
HorusCat
Altex and Former,
Doesn’t the company screen their system periodically for monkey business? I always assumed that if I had questionable stuff on my e-mail, they would find it. I know there are literally millions of e-mails flowing through the servers, but don’t they have filters that catch certain words?
Atlex
Horuscat,
The ability to look at attachments within an email is somewhat limited. It’s hard for software to see the difference between a pornographic picure and any other if it is a jpeg or other type of picture file, particularly if it an attachment.
Atlex
HorusCat
Atlex,
Yeah, I see. And I guess the e-mail body itself would be totally innocuous. Whew! Does that mean I can start sending my nude pictures through my email? (Just kidding; those are not pictures anyone would want to see!)
Dilly Clancy
Very, very sad for his wife and family. This is an intellegent man, and would have known what the outcome of his actions might bring, hence, I think a very sick individual who needs professionl help.