Computer Associates, the company the government calls "corrupt," has found a brave soul to replace its ousted general counsel Steve Woghin, who was left to the tender mercies of the federal prosecutors in mid-April, one of a bunch of senior people CA has sacrificed to the government's two-year investigation of its books.

Woghin is believed to be the so-called "Executive E" mentioned in legal papers filed by the SEC. The SEC described "Executive E" as instructing other CA executives to lie to the company's outside law firm Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz, which was hired in 2002 to investigate CA's tainted accounting practices.

Woghin has not been indicted; it is assumed "Executive E" eventually will be. Rumors suggest a whole swat of indictments will be handed out mid-summer.

Anyway, Woghin's replacement is Kenneth Handal, currently associate general counsel for the Altria family of companies, which include Kraft and Philip Morris. He starts work July 1 and will report to CA's interim CEO Ken Cron.

CA has also made Mark Barrenechea executive VP, product development - bigger job, bigger chevrons - he's running all of development now a year after joining CA from Oracle. And CA named Dan Kaferle, who's been heading up PR, senior VP of corporate communications to replace Charlie Holleran, who quietly bolted to Ford recently (CSN No 551). Back in the olden days, Kaferle was VP of corporate PR at DEC.

CA, which desperately needs to polish its halo, describes Handal as practicing law for 30 years and specializing in corporate law, corporate governance and litigation. Handal has, CA said, spent the last eight years as Altria's counsel for compliance and ethics, and counsel to its corporate audit and records management groups. Altria's tobacco interests must have given his ethics antenna a workout.

Early in his career, Handal was with the Justice Department as assistant US Attorney for the Southern District of New York, Criminal Division, experience that will doubtless serve him well at CA. He then moved on become a partner at Arnold & Porter, where he managed securities, banking, product liability and international litigation for both domestic and foreign firms.

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