An executive’s deceit over invoices left Clive sidelined
Clive Davis was lied to by an employee that he once trusted and was quick to provide the facts about why the employee was in the wrong and how he had gone behind Clive’s back.
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I was told at that time that there were two invoices of mine that he fortunately was making money from. Uh, and that was an invoice that I had gotten from the Plaza Hotel for my son Fred’s bar mitzvah, which He had come to me at the time when he was a talented executive, dealing with it. He said, let me take care of these two invoices.
He said, I can get you a better deal on the bar mitzvah. We deal with the plaza all the time. Jerry Vale, Steven Eady, Tony Bennett, they all play the plaza. I can get you a, probably a third off. I never intended to submit. My son’s permits were as a business expense. It was Turning it over for a discount in the normal cost of business.
And there was a work done on my apartment that I purchased for $55,000 that I dealt with a CBS supplier to fix my refrigerator and to do a little wiring that the bill had come in. And again, wind shore being with me often said, look, I’m gonna get you with. A big discount, uh, not knowing that he had a fraudulent scheme and I had done this a hundred times, uh, on his own, totally unrelated to me.
So I immediately, you know, discussing this with Arthur Taylor, who was a brand new president. I think he was 37 years old. Frank Stanton, the famous Frank Stanton, was no longer there. It was a brand new president. I gave them all the facts. They investigated it and I was reelected to the board of CBS. I was told that there was no problem and I never hired Dave and I certainly was not responsible for his singular malfeasance.
Internally, I was cleared, yes.