Kent Roberts, the former general counsel of software giant McAfee, has been charged with fraud, becoming the third senior in-house lawyer to be indicted this year for misconduct relating to backdated share options.

Roberts – who was accused of devising "a scheme to defraud by granting himself and others valuable in-the-money stock option grants" in a statement by the US Department of Justice – has been charged with seven counts of fraud between 2000 and 2002.

The scandal came to light when Roberts was fired in May 2006 after an internal probe highlighted him as an active participant in troubling accounting practices.