Opinion: Unlike CEOs, this ‘Occupy’ protestor couldn’t avoid prosecution

She fought Wall Street, and now she’s off to jail
Opinion: Unlike CEOs, this ‘Occupy’ protestor couldn’t avoid prosecution

By David Weidner, MarketWatch

SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) — The last few days have been a busy one for the Wall Street crime blotter. But as you review the following cases, you might find the scales of justice are more than just a little off-kilter.

Credit Suisse CS +1.68% Chief Executive Officer Brady Dougan will keep his job — one that paid him $9 million last year after a 26% raise — even thought the bank will pay a $2.6 billion settlement and plead guilty to criminal charges for helping its U.S. clients evade taxes.

SAC Capital Advisors LLC founder Steven A. Cohen spent the weekend free as a bird, perhaps counting the sum of what had been years of an annual compensation package of $1 billion. He did so after another one of his lieutenants, Michael Steinberg, was sentenced Friday to 3 1/2 years in prison for his role in a firm-wide insider-trading scheme.

Steinberg was the latest in a string of former SAC traders and managers who have been ratting out one another and receiving prison sentences.

Lest you think these cases suggest that it’s just the small fish who meet the hook of justice, consider the 90-day jail term just handed out to Cecily McMillan for second-degree assault.

McMillan is the last Occupy Wall Street protestor to be sentenced for her role in the 2010 and 2011 protests in New York that were ultimately swept away by a city police raid ordered by then-Mayor Michael Bloomberg.

McMillan, now a 25-year-old graduate student, was in Zuccotti Park in lower Manhattan on March 17, 2012, celebrating the six-month anniversary of Occupy Wall Street, which was evicted from the park in November 2011. The police were ordered to clear the park. Scuffles ensued. Chaos. An officer claims McMillian elbowed him in the face. McMillan said someone grabbed her breast.

There is a grainy video of the elbowing that was reviewed by The Wall Street Journal reporter covering the case. It “doesn’t definitively show if it was intentional or not,” the Journal reported . During the trial, McMillan’s lawyers were barred from cross-examining the officer.

Her case received unusual attention. There were protests at the courthouse. After her conviction May 5, city council members called for leniency in her sentencing. Councilman Ydanis Rodriguez was also arrested at Zuccotti Park. His charges were dismissed.

Jail time for McMillan, he said, would send “a message that if you join a protest, if you defend your rights, you will be charged with assaulting a police officer.”

That’s one message. Another possible one: better to be at the top of a multi-billion-dollar institution that helps people hide from the Internal Revenue Service or disguises ill-gotten gains or takes no responsibility for the conduct of its employees.

Good Read Article...couldn't post it all...READ HERE:

http://www.marketwatch.com/story/she-fought-wall-street-and-now-shes-off-to-jail-2014-05-20?dist=lcountdown