Financial Fraud Is Focus of Attack by Prosecutors

[Frank Booth]

Source: NY Times

Spurred by rising public anger, federal and state investigators are preparing for a surge of prosecutions of financial fraud.

Across the country, attorneys general have already begun indicting dozens of loan processors, mortgage brokers and bank officers. Last week alone, there were guilty pleas in Minnesota, Delaware, North Carolina and Connecticut and sentences in Florida and Vermont — all stemming from home loan scams.

With the Obama administration focused on stabilizing the banks and restoring confidence in the stock market, it has said little about federal civil or criminal charges. But its proposed budget contains hints that it will add to this weight of litigation, including money for more F.B.I. agents to investigate mortgage fraud and white-collar crime, and a 13 percent raise for the Securities and Exchange Commission.

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“It’s clear that he and other top-level members of the Obama administration want to seize the opportunity to send a message of zero tolerance for mortgage fraud,” said Connecticut’s attorney general, Richard Blumenthal, who attended a meeting with Mr. Holder and other state attorneys general last week in Washington. “The only question is when and how they will do it.”

Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/12/business/12crime.html

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This is great news.

[Lugnut]

1. K&R n/t

[Hekate]

2. This is wonderful, wonderful news. KnR.

President Obama, :yourock:

Hekate

[SleeplessinSoCal]

3. We may have to build more prisons!

[Hekate]

6. No need. Just send home the pot smokers who got busted--there'll be plenty of room then. nt

[No Elephants]

4. Cuomo is going to make Governor of NY or Senator on this. And maybe, someday, Prez. Watch.

[Optical.Catalyst]

5. I wish they could prosecute CEO's that get fat bonuses when their companies lose money

The top people who run their companies into the ground, cause the workers to lose their jobs, and still collect a big reward need to go to jail.

[NJCher]

7. punishment enough

The article points out that some of the higher level executive fraud cases don't hold up:

Some high-profile convictions have been won in the last decade, but several of the Enron-related prosecutions and some cases brought by Eliot Spitzer when he was New York’s attorney general fell apart or were overturned on appeal.

They should go through the wringer anyway. It is traumatic to go through a prosecution and even if they do get off at the end, they'll have had to spend a significant amount of their ill-gotten gains on legal fees.



Cher