John Cassidy has a remarkable story out in the New Yorker this week about a sweetheart deal cut by the Justice Department with one of the wealthiest men in the world, Steven A. Cohen (who may be pictured here at a standard picnic, or not). Cohen’s company would pay $626 million but not have to admit any wrongdoing and Cohen would face no personal sanction. The billionaire appears to be celebrating this month with a buying spree with a Picasso painting and a huge new mansion. What is amazing is that various Cohen subordinates have pleaded guilty and Cohen has been tied directly to an insider trading allegation. Yet, he appears to “too big to jail” as a continuation of the Obama Administration’s bifurcated legal system for the super rich and the rest of us.
This is a standard ploy in which a sweet deal is reached to protect a powerful individual by setting a huge penalty to be paid by his company. The Obama Administration has been flogging the size of the payment to distract attention from the fact that Cohen will be left entirely untouched.
There is still a chance that the judge presented with this settlement could reject it for lack of any admission of guilt. Judge Victor Marrero already seemed shocked by the lack of such admissions: “There is something counterintuitive and incongruous about settling for six hundred million dollars if it truly did nothing wrong.” Amen brother. He could reject it but it would be a rare assertion of judicial authority in a case with such a high financial penalty.
I recommend Cassidy’s article to you below but I suggest not driving or operating heavy equipment after reading the piece.
Source: New Yorker
Elaine,
that is a disturbing decision.
This is just Shameless!!
Elaine, I am going to share that article with my women in pain awareness group. (Research shows women with chronic pain have harder time being diagnosed, treated, and believed despite having higher number of pain disorders so sexism is still alive and well, even for those women in pain.)
Thanks for the article.
Thanks for the article AP, A plea deal without an allocution of guilt? Wow, talk about a sweet deal. Lanny Breuer needs to be in jail. So many do, but aren’t.
Standard practice with Obama. Jail the truth tellers and reward the wealthy criminal. Obama makes Bush ll look like a saint at times. Obama fits the Orwell quote very well. Truth is treason in the empire of lies.
And now this…
Judge Dismisses Most Claims In Libor Lawsuits, Ruling In Favor Of Big Banks
Reuters
By Nate Raymond
Posted: 03/29/2013
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/03/29/libor-lawsuits-claims-dismissed_n_2981513.html
Excerpt;
NEW YORK (Reuters) – A judge on Friday dismissed a “substantial portion” of claims facing a number of banks in a barrage of lawsuits accusing them of interest-rate rigging.
U.S. District Judge Naomi Reice Buchwald in Manhattan ruled for the banks, which include Bank of America Corp , JPMorgan Chase & Co and others, of allegedly manipulating the London Interbank Offered Rate, commonly known as Libor.
The judge granted the banks’ motion to dismiss the plaintiffs’ federal antitrust claims and partially dismissed their claims of commodities manipulation. She also dismissed racketeering and state-law claims.
The decision is a significant setback for private plaintiffs, whose lawsuits had been consolidated before the New York judge as part of a multidistrict litigation proceeding.
In a 161-page opinion, Buchwald said she recognized her ruling might be “unexpected,” since several defendants had paid billions of dollars in penalties to government regulatory agencies.
But she said unlike government agencies, private plaintiffs needed to meet many requirements under the statutes to bring a case.
“Therefore, although we are fully cognizant of the settlements that several of the defendants here have entered into with government regulators, we find that only some of the claims that plaintiffs have asserted may properly proceed,” she wrote.
To those that are glad Mr. O beat Mr R. I have to ask, do you really believe things would be different under Mr. R? Like how, maybe Mr. R would develop a kill list and put people on their with no judicial oversight? Oh wait, Mr O has one and has used it on U.S citizens 3 times. Maybe Mr R. would have sent Billions $ to his rich banker friends? Oh wait Mr. O already did that. Maybe Mr. R would let rich bankers off without prosecution? Oh wait, Mr. O (through Mr. H) has already let them all go (with extra money in their bank accounts).
So what would Mr. R have done that would be so egregious?
The Rs and Ds are one and the same. There is a class in our society and if you’re not in the class, tough luck on you. Color has no bearing on being in the class or not, only the ability to get each other more money and keep each other out of the slammer.
Time to start holding trials. For both the bankers and the govt
Iceland did it right, throw them in jal.
Wow, that much to a company like would be like $10 or $15 to me, big deal, sounds like a swat on the wrist fine. If his employees face prison no reason the one in charge of them shouldn’t as well.
On the topic of “too big to jail”:
http://youtu.be/EKSX9_wFBoQ
Watergate’s Lessons, Washed Away
March 29, 2013
by Michael Winship
http://billmoyers.com/2013/03/29/watergate%E2%80%99s-lessons-washed-away/
Excerpt:
And the courts worked, from John Sirica, chief judge of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, who cracked down on the Watergate burglars and demanded the White House turn over those audiotapes, to the highest court in the land. As Fred Wertheimer of the reform group Democracy 21 remarked at the conference, “The Supreme Court understood that citizens had a constitutional right to protect their democracy from corruption.”
People went to jail, lots of them — even the former attorney general of the United States, John Mitchell. Think about that. Many of them did hard time. Today, we couldn’t even get miscreant bankers to resign in exchange for their billions in bailouts, much less prosecute them for criminal behavior.
The briefly restored public trust that followed Nixon’s departure started turning back to the cynicism that endures today almost immediately, when his successor Gerald Ford absolved Nixon of his sins with a full presidential pardon. In the years that followed, the erosion has continued. The bagmen have become the banks and Wall Street. Gridlock and intolerance have replaced bipartisanship. The efforts at campaign finance reform that followed Watergate – crushed by Citizens United and other court rulings — have dwindled to the point where, as conference panelist Trevor Potter of the Campaign Legal Center observed, we are “shockingly close again to no contribution limits.” And with 9/11 and the war on terror, including ongoing drone attacks and threats to civil liberties, Morton Halperin noted, “The public is once again accepting an imperial presidency.”
During its conference, Common Cause presented what it called Uncommon Heroes awards to members of the House Judiciary Committee who served during the crisis, and saluted an Uncommon Heroes of Watergate Honor Roll, a bipartisan collection of “individuals from Richard Nixon’s Enemies List, members of the prosecution team, journalists and House and Senate Committee staff.” All could look back 40 years and be proud they took a stand.
But the Lessons of Watergate are lessons learned and lost. We’ve got to organize, get our government back and make it accountable. Many believe it will take another scandal the size of Watergate, or worse, to get us back on track. Let’s hope not. Instead, four decades in the future, let there be changes for the good America can celebrate, so we don’t wind up like those old ballplayers on the road, reliving an unforced error, again and again.
Our country has been run for a couple of decades now by Liars and Traitorous Fascists
.
Yet another win for BIG Goverment & Crony Capitalism…nothing to see here, please mover along folks.
Elizabeth Warren Questions Bank Regulators At First Hearing
>> The fascist mafia crooks work a deal with their corrupt govt puppets to pay a big sounding fine, about 1% of the total stolen, but they admit no guilt, there is no open court public discloser through discovery. And then they sign a non-discloser agreement hiding from the public evidence of their crimes. <<
On this same subject of dening the court's discovery process & the fascist/govt hiding evidence from the public there is a mountain of evidence our govt has been for sometime attacking citizens using false flag events.
IE: USS Liberty, Gulf of Tokon, etc…
As it appears set today on Monday," April Fools Day", in Colorado, the claimed theater shooter is set to go before the court & plead guilty under a deal with the DA.
By allowing that plea to go forward it will likely block/slow further evidence that that shooting, like Sandy Hook may also have been, just another false flag attack, used at least for the propose of attacking the 2nd Amd.
Why was the accused shooter being paid by the govt before the shooting?
What are the details behind the accused shooter's long running enrollment into a govt mind control experiments?
Why do we have Intel Officers/LEO coming forward pointing out that it appears to be a False Flag Op?
I hope the judge throws out the plea deal & takes it ti trial!
Remember this?
Every day, he gets to laugh all the way to the bank. He gets to laugh at the whole world. He is beyond all. He is King. It’s good to be the King.
“There is something counterintuitive and incongruous about settling for six hundred million dollars if it truly did nothing wrong.” Amen brother.
Yes, the judge sees the picture.
It is more evidence of epigovernment.
On the subject of the on going fraud by Wallst/London transnational Banks/Insur co, & assorted other American hating scum I continue to see these type settlements.
The fascist mafia crooks work a deal with their corrupt govt puppets to pay a big sounding fine, about 1% of the total stolen, but they admit no guilt, there is no open court public discloser through discovery. And then they sign a non-discloser agreement hiding from the public evidence of their crimes.
How is it we have not seen lawyer/lawyers court case against the Wallst fascist & their govt puppets under say the RICO act of Aiding/Abetting ongoing criminal enterprises “After the Fact”?
Professor Turley/other lawyers, where are you guys hiding & why?
On another subject, I went to a meeting last night with some state polcats speaking & trying to move forward in many states what Thomas Jefferson called the Nullification process.
Here is a link to the movie they showed:
(They give Professor Turley about 2 seconds that I felt was slanted at that, but still on the broader concept I agree with the movie.)
Documentary Film Premiere, Nullification: The Rightful Remedy
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kDcaCfCrmEo
While I was looking for that link I found this other interest speech:
“Constitution For Dummies” by Judge Andrew Napolitano