Former Rite Aid CEO starts 8-year prison term.

Byline: Tom Dochat

Jun. 29--Two years after his indictment and one year after his guilty plea, Martin L. Grass, former chairman and CEO at Rite Aid Corp., began serving a prison sentence Monday for his role in accounting irregularities at the drugstore chain in the late 1990s.

Grass, 50, reported to the federal prison camp in Eglin, Fla., to begin an eight-year sentence on two conspiracy charges. He is one of the highest-ranking executives to be imprisoned since a wave of corporate accounting scandals surfaced over the past few years.

The government said Rite Aid overstated its earnings by about $1.6 billion in the late 1990s, when Grass led the East …