Argo

* Dayton: 13500 block of Argo Drive: Someone tried to enter a home through the dog's entrance in the door between Feb. and Monday.

The Securities and Exchange Commission has sued Carole D. Argo, alleging the former SafeNet Inc. executive "engaged in a fraudulent scheme" to rig stock option awards, netting herself and select colleagues millions and causing the Harford County technology company to issue false financial reports. The civil lawsuit, filed Wednesday in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, comes a week after Argo, 46, was indicted in federal court on related criminal charges of securities fraud and conspiracy.

NEW YORK -- In his 30-year legal career, Judge Jed Rakoff had pretty much seen it all when it came to white-collar crime. He even taught a course on it at Columbia Law. He had prosecuted countless fraud cases and spent 12 years on the federal bench. But Rakoff couldn't seem to quite figure out what had corrupted the woman sitting before him on that January day in his courtroom, No. 14B, in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York. Carole Diane Argo was a 46-year-old mother of three, Cub Scout pack founder, volunteer, active church member and caretaker of her widowed sister's family.

SafeNet Inc., the Harford County technology company under federal investigation for its stock option grants, has reached settlement agreements with two of its former top executives, according to documents filed late yesterday with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The executives, Anthony A. Caputo, former chairman and chief executive, and Carole D. Argo, who was president, chief operating officer and acting chief financial officer, resigned in October amid an investigation into the company's stock options.

Carole D. Argo, a former top executive at Harford County technology company SafeNet Inc., was indicted yesterday on charges of rigging stock-option grants in a six-year scheme that netted her and other employees millions of dollars in improper stock gains and inflated bonuses. Argo, 46, is expected to be arraigned today in Manhattan federal court on charges of securities fraud and conspiracy. If convicted, she faces a maximum of 25 years in prison and fines of at least $250,000, according to the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of New York.

The top two SafeNet Inc. executives, who resigned last week as a result of a stock options investigation, have agreed not to cash in most of their options pending a determination of whether they were fired or resigned, a process that could take months. Anthony A. Caputo, former chairman and chief executive of the Harford County encryption company, and Carole Argo, who was president, chief operating officer and acting chief financial officer, agreed not to exercise options that the company finds were improperly dated and for which it will have to take a charge, according to a SafeNet filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Network-security provider SafeNet Inc. announced yesterday a $25 million, all-cash deal to buy Eracom Technologies AG, a German company whose products are aimed at curtailing identity theft. SafeNet expects to complete the deal by year's end. Its shares rose $1.78, or nearly 6 percent, to close at $33.88 yesterday. "We feel extremely good about this deal," said Carole D. Argo, SafeNet's president and chief operating officer. "This is just a great fit for us at this time." Eracom Technologies, a privately held company near Dusseldorf, is involved in online security, focusing largely on financial-services customers.

Sister Mary Carmelia Cetrone, O.S.F., a retired teacher, died Wednesday of heart failure at Assisi House, the retirement home of the Sisters of St. Francis of Philadelphia in Aston, Pa. She was 90.Sister Carmelia first came to Baltimore in 1924, teaching in elementary schools at St. Elizabeth's Church in East Baltimore and then, after 1928, at St. Vincent de Paul on Front Street.She taught mathematics, Latin and French at the Catholic High School in East Baltimore from its opening in 1939 until 1957.

The Golden Globe nominees have a heavy literary bent this year, with a large number of adaptations featured in the key categories. Just consider the two "best picture" categories, which draw from novels and non-fiction books that have topped the best-seller lists -- or, in some cases, were sleepers that will draw many more readers now. (I, for one, can't wait to read more about the historic background behind "Lincoln. ") Here's a quick summary of some leading adaptations (and one movie tie-in)