TAIBBI: Finally, a Judge Stands up to Wall Street

Finally, a Judge Stands up to Wall Street
POSTED: November 10, 10:07 AM ET


Federal judge Jed Rakoff, a former prosecutor with the U.S. Attorney’s office here in New York, is fast becoming a sort of legal hero of our time. He showed that again yesterday when he shat all over the SEC’s latest dirty settlement with serial fraud offender Citigroup, refusing to let the captured regulatory agency sweep yet another case of high-level criminal malfeasance under the rug.

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Goldman, in the Abacus case, got fined $550 million. In this worse case, the SEC was trying to settle with Citi for just $285 million. Judge Rakoff balked at the settlement and particularly balked at the SEC’s decision to allow Citi off without any admission of wrongdoing. He also mocked the SEC’s decision to describe the crime as “negligence” instead of intentional fraud, taking the entirely rational position that there’s no way a bank making $160 million ripping off its customers can conceivably be described as an accident.


*****“Why should the court impose a judgment in a case in which the SEC alleges a serious securities fraud but the defendant neither admits nor denies wrongdoing?” And this: “How can a securities fraud of this nature and magnitude be the result simply of negligence?”


Rakoff of course is right – the settlement is nuts. If you take Citi’s $160 million profit on the deal into consideration, what we’re talking about then is a $125 million fine for causing $700 million in damages. That, and no admission of wrongdoing.



Read more: http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/blogs/taibblog/finally-a-judge-stands-up-to-wall-street-20111110#ixzz1dMZq3THu

...dissolution of the corporation.

"...refusing to let the captured regulatory agency (the SEC) sweep yet another case of high-level criminal malfeasance under the rug" - This is absolutely true. It's so important for people to understand that the SEC is captured by Wall Street. Matt Taibbi speaks the truth. That is his agenda.

not be in this mess to begin with.

Good for him, I hope he gets support from other judges who will follow his example.

it is easy to understand why there are so few like him.

And we shouldn't even need to have a judge weigh in on this - our politicians should have seen to it that Glass Steagal wasn't gutted in the first place. And tha tthe SEC had some teeth.

fraud, we have to rely on civil suits by ordinary people and a few judges to try to get some accountability because of the failure of our elected representatives.