Seifert's Stature Seals Her Fate

Shona Seifert was “at the heart and the pinnacle of the conspiracy” to overbill the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy, according to prosecutors. And last week, Judge Richard M. Berman agreed, heaping a heftier sentence upon Seifert than on her co-defendant, Thomas Early.

Berman sentenced Seifert, 44, former executive group director at Ogilvy & Mather, to 18 months in a minimum-security prison in Danbury, Conn.—four months longer than former finance director Early —because as a hands-on manager, Seifert was responsible for a “slippage in ethics,” he said.

Seifert and Early were convicted in February on 10 counts of fraud and conspiracy.