Judge Boyle acknowledged errors on two of his financial disclosure reports, for which his accountant takes the blame, according to public documents received by CIR. In a June 19th letter to the financial disclosure committee of the federal judiciary, Boyle wrote: “It has recently come to my attention that there was an incorrect inclusion of a reference to ‘Quintiles stock’ in my 2001 and 2002 financial disclosure reports.” Boyle presided over a case involving Quintiles in 2001 while reporting stock holdings in the company. But in defending himself against conflict of interest charges, he has denied owning Quintiles stock during that time, contradicting his own financial filings. In explaining the apparent errors, Boyle enclosed a May 30th letter from his accountant, Raymond W. Edwards of RSM McGladrey, Inc. Edwards wrote that despite not remembering or keeping complete notes of the exact situation, Boyle clearly “did not actually own those shares during either of those years.” Edwards attributes the mistake on the 2001 report to a “learning curve” and a confusing entry in a previous report. Edwards says his office reported Boyle’s sale of the stock on June 30, 2002 because by then the accountants had probably realized Boyle did not own the stock and therefore used an arbitrary date to wipe it from the records. Edwards concluded: “It is clear to me that the mistake on both reports was mine.” Multiple examples of Boyle’s conflicts of interest are cited in this Salon.com article, with supporting documents here and here.

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Will Evans is a senior reporter and producer for Reveal, covering labor and tech. His reporting has prompted government investigations, legislation, reforms and prosecutions. A series on working conditions at Amazon warehouses was a finalist for a Pulitzer Prize and won a Gerald Loeb Award. His work has also won multiple Investigative Reporters and Editors Awards, including for a series on safety problems at Tesla. Other investigations have exposed secret spying at Uber, illegal discrimination in the temp industry and rampant fraud in California's drug rehab system for the poor. Prior to joining The Center for Investigative Reporting in 2005, Evans was a reporter at The Sacramento Bee. He is based in Reveal's Emeryville, California, office.