Jed S. Rakoff Quotes
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?
Rakoff, Jed S. Opinion and Order, U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission v. Citigroup Global Markets Inc. 827 F. Supp. 2d 328, United States District Court for the Southern District of New York, 28 Nov. 2011, p. 332.
Marcopolos had discovered the Bernie Madoff Ponzi Scheme Fraud 9 years before the government discovered the largest consumer fraud ($68 billion) in American financial history. He repeatedly sent warnings and explanations to the SEC investigators, most of which turned out to be exactly right. They ignored all of it I an era of deregulation, and never even investigated Madoff to see if there might be anything amiss.
Marcopolos had discovered the Bernie Madoff Ponzi scheme fraud 9 years before the government discovered the largest consumer fraud ($68 billion) in American financial history. He repeatedly sent warnings and explanations to the SEC investigators, most of which turned out to be exactly right. They ignored all of it, and never investigated Madoff to see if there might be anything amiss.
The then attorney general had begun a series of investigation which discovered that most of the major Wall Street brokerage houses were engaged in systematic frauds to cheat small investors. One dramatic fraud he uncovered was that the research expert analysts of major firms would recommend the stock of businesses that their firm was doing investment banking for even when they knew that the companies were not doing well or were even in deep financial trouble. See {627544}.
Barry Bonds was a star professional baseball player whose accomplishments were aided by taking illegal drugs. He lied about his use of drugs, and the Department made a very large effort over years to finally prosecute him. However during that time there were almost no prosecutions of the thousands of bankers and financiers who had lied, cheated, forged legal documents and in the process almost permanently ruined the American economy—the Great Recession of 2008. The Justice Department claimed that white collar cases are very complex and take longer to prepare prosecutions. Critics claimed that there are so many law breakers, that the government does not want to prosecute all the felons, but just go after a few, and this is easier if time has gone by and public anger has receded or been forgotten.
Marcus Garvey was the best known of the Black leaders of his day. One of his programs for Blacks was to build Black pride by creating a Black owned Steamship Line. He could not get any Bank to finance this enterprise and so he formed his corporation and sold stock in it to Blacks throughout the country. However either Garvey or the people raising the money for him were using illegal means of selling the stock. Du Bois warned his relatives from investing in the Black Star line which went bankrupt as the vessels they bought either sank or floundered. To this day, there are some who believe that the bankruptcy was caused by white establishment harassment of Garvey’s enterprise while other historians believe that while there certainly was white harassment, Garvey’s lack of training and familiarity with the complexities of running a steamship line led to its downfall.
Jed Saul Rakoff is a Senior United States District Judge of the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York.
