No...seriously people, the Miami Herald writes: “The conviction of billionaire Wall Street tycoon Raj Rajaratnam by a New York federal jury this month may be a welcome and overdue sign that the criminal justice system can still hold major white collar criminals accountable. But if the founder of Galleon Group hedge fund turns out to be just a sacrificial lamb, his conviction won’t do much to win back the public’s trust.
Ever since the collapse of the economy began in 2007, Americans have been rightly skeptical about the ability of regulators to prevent the rampant market manipulation and self-enrichment that generated huge profits for insiders and enormous losses for defenseless investors.....
Today, justice remains on hold. Prosecutors have been either unwilling or unable to pursue the wrongdoers. Early on, two Bear Stearns executives, Ralph Cioffi and Matthew Tannin, were indicted after their internal hedge fund collapsed, but a jury acquitted them. Apparently, that made prosecutors decide that financial fraud cases were too hard to win.
Earlier this year, it was reported that the Justice Department would not prosecute an emblematic figure in the collapse of the U.S. housing market — Angelo Mozilo, former chief executive of Countrywide Financial, once the nation’s largest mortgage lender. Prosecutors let Mr. Mozilo walk even after he agreed to pay $67.5 million to settle a civil fraud case brought by the Securities and Exchange Commission for concealing the risks of the subprime mortgage markets in public statements to shareholders...
This sorry record has undermined public confidence — in markets, in the justice system, in the government. In all these cases, insiders got the check, taxpayers got the bill. Some blame a lack of resources — the FBI is too busy pursuing the threat of terrorism — or the difficulty of proving financial fraud beyond a reasonable doubt. Either way, the feeling persists that there’s no justice.
Raj Rajaratnam’s insider-trading practices were typical of the rampant avarice that motivated so many of those who were responsible for the economic collapse. His conviction sends a needed signal to Wall Street that, as U.S. Attorney Pheet Bharara declared, “Greed, sometimes, is not good…..”
Wait, wait..don't stop now. There's more at:
http://www.miamiherald.com/2011/05/22/2226842/justice-on-wall-street.html
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