Former HP CEO Fiorina also ordered probes

updated 12:25 p.m. ET Oct. 5, 2006

NEW YORK - Former Hewlett-Packard chief executive Carly Fiorina ordered the first of a series of leak investigations into contacts by board members with journalists in January 2005, Fiorina says in her memoir, The New York Times reported on Thursday.

The newspaper said Fiorina’s book, “Tough Choices,” is embargoed for release on Tuesday and had been made available to reviewers only if they sign a nondisclosure agreement, but it was purchased at a bookstore on Wednesday by a reporter for The New York Times.

California’s attorney general on Wednesday filed felony charges against Hewlett-Packard’s former chairman, Patricia Dunn, and four others for spying on journalists and the company’s own board of directors and executives.

The scandal around the cloak-and-dagger hunt for a boardroom leak that resorted to identity theft has rocked Hewlett-Packard, a Silicon Valley icon.

California’s chief deputy attorney general, Robert Anderson, declined to comment on Wednesday on whether Fiorina was under investigation.

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