of a plan in early 2001 to borrow money but make it look like operational revenue. A corporation known as ABG Gas Supply was created. ABG secured loans from Citigroup, Credit Suisse First Boston, and Deutsche Bank to buy natural gas at market prices. ABG then sold this gas at a discount to Dynegy, which resold it at market prices and booked a $300 million profit. ABG then bought natural gas at market prices, and sold it at a premium to Dynegy. The profits ABG booked were then used to repay the loans. Prosecutors accused Olis, Foster, and Sharkey of deceiving auditors, regulators, and other company executives regarding the transactions. Foster and Sharkey plead guilty two months later. Olis was found guilty in March 2004, and sentenced to 24 years in prison. (A year later, after a U.S. Supreme Court ruling in a different case held that mandatory sentencing guidelines violated the Constitution, Olis' sentence was reduced to just six years in prison.) In December 2003, three former executives at Nicor Energy LLC (a joint venture of Dynegy and Nicor), were indicted for illegally manipulating that firm's income by US$11 million in 2001 to hide losses. Former chief financial officer Robert Doty agreed to pay a $376,650 fine in October 2007 for his role in helping to conceal the ABG Gas Supply scheme. Shareholders, too, were unhappy with Dynegy's actions during the financial crisis. A class action lawsuit was filed against the company in 2002. In April 2005, Dynegy agreed to settle the lawsuit. Shareholders would be paid a total of US$468 million. To come up with the money, Dynegy paid out $250 million in cash and issued $68 million in stock to the plaintiffs. Its insurance companies paid another $150 million to the plaintiffs. Recovery and restructuring On October 23, 2002, Dynegy hired Bruce Williamson, a former Duke Energy executive, as its chief executive officer. Six weeks later, Dynegy hired Nick J. Caruso, a former chief financial officer at Royal Dutch Shell, as its new chief financial officer. Williamson began a program of cost cutting, elimination of unprofitable businesses, and financial restructuring. As Williamson later told the New York Times in June 2005, "We had businesses in trading, in marketing, in broadband communications, in Europe, in communications as far as China. What we have done is very systematically sell those off, shut down offices and concentrate on the two