Ex-KIT Digital CEO Tuzman Avoids U.S. Prison in Fraud Case (1)

Former KIT Digital Inc. founder and Chief Executive Officer Kaleil Isaza Tuzman avoided a U.S. prison sentence prison for using market manipulation and fraudulent accounting to prop up the digital-video software startup.

U.S. District Judge Paul Gardephe noted that Tuzman, 49, had already been imprisoned under deplorable conditions in Colombia, where he was arrested at the request of federal prosecutors in Manhattan and held for 10 months before extradition. The judge said the risk to Tuzman’s mental health posed by additional imprisonment “is just too great.”

Gardephe last month sentenced Tuzman’s co-defendant, Omar Amanat, to five years in prison. ...