MSP Compulinx CEO Pleads Guilty In Fraud Case
CRN first reported the case in Nov. 1, 2006 when Chalk was arrested after an eight count indictment by federal prosecutors who said between 2001 and 2006, Chalk stole the identities of some of his 50 employees and used their names, addresses and social security numbers in submitting loan, credit line and credit card applications.
In a jailhouse interview with CRN two weeks after his arrest, Chalk maintained his innocence and blamed the charges on unnamed people who betrayed him.
"This whole thing is political," he said.
In a follow up CRN article, Chalk's former business associates said that he falsely claimed that Compulinx had hundreds of customers with data hosted on a massive IT infrastructure of 300 servers and 40 TB of storage in four data centers.
"[Chalk] got very politically connected, and he made a lot of promises that resulted in an image that he walked on water," said Christopher Furey, CEO of Savvy Networks in Tarrytown, N.Y., at the time. "But the bottom line is, he had one cabinet in our facility, that was it. The other three data centers don't exist."
Furey told CRN that his company was forced to discontinue Compulinx collocation services in July 2006, after receiving checks that later bounced from Compulinx. Furey also said that the company tried to remove its equipment when outstanding charges could no longer be paid by check or credit card. The companies eventually worked out a cash settlement, Furey said.
Furey could not be reached for comment Thursday.