Apple Supply Manager Pleas Not Guilty In $1MM Kickback Scheme

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Paul Devine — the Apple global supply manager who was arrested over the weekend for allegedly accepting over $1 million in kickbacks from Asian iPod and iPhone accessory manufacturers for privileged insider information — has pleaded not guilty to the charges in Federal Court.

The plea comes even as Pegatron (a division of Asustek) has suspended the head of one of their units for doing business with Devine.

Pegatron says they thought the money was a brokerage commission, and paid it to an intermediate trading company between 2005 and 2008, but occurred before Pegatron bought up Kaedar, a company which has supplied iPod boxes to Apple for years.

According to Pegatron, the executive responsible for paying Devine the kickback thought she was paying money for a legitimate commercial purpose and not as a kickback.

Pegatron isn’t the only company to have either conspired or been burned by Devine’s scheme. South Korea’s Cresyn andJin Li Mould Manufacturing have also been named in Apple’s civil lawsuit against Devine. It’s not clear at this point if these companies were actually conspiring with Devine, or if they’ve just been burned by one rogue, criminal mid-level manager.

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