Gaston Bastiaens

Gaston Bastiaens (born December 16, 1946) is a former executive of Apple Computer and who was sentenced to three years in prison for corporate fraud in Belgium.

Education
Bastiaens was born in, Belgium and graduated from the. He received a masters degree in engineering from the.

Philips Electronics
At in the Netherlands, Bastiaens was director of the Consumer Electronics Division and general manager of the Interactive Media Systems Group, helping to launch the  (CD-i) platform in 1990.

Apple Computer
Bastiaens joined Apple Computer on July 15, 1992 and became the vice president and general manager of the Personal Interactive Electronics (PIE) division that was overseeing development of the Newton mobile platform. During the tradeshow at, Germany in March 1993, Bastiaens bet his  against a journalist that the beleagured Newton development team would still be able to ship the Newton MessagePad by the end of that summer. The original MessagePad did launch in August at Macworld Expo Boston, but its Newton OS was beset by numerous bugs, including faulty handwriting recognition. Bastiaens was met with criticism suggesting that he had rushed the release to avoid losing his wine cellar. Bastiaens left Apple in April 1994.

After Apple
After briefly working as CEO of, Bastiaens in October 1996 became president and CEO of , a Belgian developer of speech recognition products. In August 2000, He resigned amid a shareholder lawsuit that the company had been reporting falsified sales and revenues. The company's $10 billion disappeared and investors were wiped out.

Arrest and fraud conviction
On May 26, 2001, Bastiaens was arrested in by  and extradited to Belgium to face trial. He was found guilty and sentenced to 5 years in prison, with two years suspended on probation. Another hearing to rule on damages is scheduled on December 10, 2021 at the in, Belgium.

Articles

 * Today in Apple history: Newton boss departs as device struggles by Luke Dormehl at Cult of Mac (2021-04-19)
 * Immortal Code by Martha Baer at Wired (2003-02)
 * Lernout's Former CEO Bastiaens Is Arrested in U.S. on Fraud Charges by Mark Maremont at The Wall Street Journal (2001-05-29)