For many people, prison is a terrible place that breaks their spirit and turns them into a shell of the person they once were. They grow bitter. They harden. Their looks take a hit. Two people for whom time in a correctional facility actually seems to have served them quite well? The currently incarcerated Raj Rajaratnam, who is said to be in quite “good spirits” and looking fantastic, to boot, and the recently released (early for good behavior) Danielle Chiesi, who looks GOOD and feels GREAT. Read more »
prison
Life is terribly unfair. You help bring down Raj Rajaratnam and get yelled at by a defense lawyer during another insider-trading trial, but you tell a few white lies, destroy some evidence, warn some of your friends—including the only fugitive in the whole insider-trading crackdown—that the Feds are on to them and perjure yourself a little, and you don’t get to get away with your second insider-trading conviction. Read more »
Turkey Offers Two Options For People With Nothing Nice To Say About Its Capital Markets
By Bess LevinOption A: shut the hell up. Option B: spend time in prison. Read more »
No, he didn’t get the outside the box punishment his lawyers were hoping for, i.e. volunteer work in Rwanda but he did receive a far less harsh sentence than the 10 years in the big house prosecutors had requested, which has got to feel pretty good. Read more »
Wedding After-Party Of Financial Services Couple Requires One Cop For Every One Guest*
By Bess Levin
Which apparently wasn’t enough. Read more »
Breathe easy, friends of Bob Diamond and the guy who wrote “Anything for you, Big Boy,” as a response to the request, “Can you manipulate Libor for me today when you’ve got a sec? Thanks a mill.” In this case we speak of Rachael Claire Martin, the ex-Barlcays employee who used customer funds to pay for breast augmentations, dental work, liposuction, drugs, alcohol, shoes, and jewelry, despite initially telling authorities she covered the tricks and treats with money she earned engaging in sex for payment (an excuse anyone else facing questioning for their own alleged misconduct should feel free to test out). Read more »
UBS Whistleblower’s $104 Million Award Poses Interesting Conundrum For Would-Be Snitches
By Bess Levin
Remember Bradley Birkenfeld? He’s the guy who single-handedly made the government’s case against UBS and forced the Swiss bank to hand over the names of thousands of tax cheats, which resulted in the US scoring $780 million from UBS and may have inspired some 33,000 Americans to “voluntarily disclose offshore accounts to the IRS, generating more than $5 billion.” And yet, despite his assistance, Birkenfeld wasn’t immediately thanked for a job well done. Instead, he was sentenced to forty months in prison (fair-ish, considering he showed a few clients how to avoid paying taxes himself) and told to piss off by the Internal Revenue Service, from whom he sought an award, because he was “not forthcoming about his own role in the scheme,” even as a Justice Department attorney admitted that “…without Mr. Birkenfeld walking into the door of the Department of Justice in the summer of 2007, I doubt as of today that this massive fraud would have been discovered by the US government” (or as his lawyer put it, “They didn’t know how to spell UBS until he showed up. He didn’t just give them a piece of the puzzle. He gave them the entire puzzle”). Now, after doing 32 months at Schuylkill Federal Correctional Institution, getting let out early on account of “good-time credit,” and living in a halfway house in New Hampshire, Birkenfeld has finally been thrown a bone. Read more »
Before anyone takes to Twitter to give the UK a piece of her mind, though, breathe easy: the misconduct is related to funds used to pay for breast augmentations and other cosmetic enhancements and could even take some of the heat off of Bob Diamond et al, who’ve yet* to be accused of using customer money to finance their liposuction. Read more »
Fuck with Count Vikula at your own risk. Read more »
Bernie Madoff Was Just Trying To “Change The Way Money Was Managed,” Not That Anyone Cares
By Bess Levin
For about a year now, Bernie Madoff has been holding court with various members of the press about something that’s been plaguing him: the fact that few people if any are willing to give credit where credit is due. Yes, he may have pleaded guilty to a $50 billion crime that ruined countless people’s lives, including those of his wife and children, one of whom committed suicide as a result, but he did a lot of other stuff too, like run a “successful business” for which he won lots of “industry awards” during his “legitimate years.” And, yet, everyone seems to forget all that when his name comes up, much like they conveniently forgot about how Mussolini made the trains run or time, or how Hitler built those wonderful autobahns, or how Ted Bundy made women feel special. And since he’s serving a 150 year sentence, Berns has had lots of time to ponder why his years of legitimate achievements go unmentioned and the one thing he keeps coming back to? Irving Picard, who’s pulled a fast one on you all, by suggesting that Bernie’s crime started wayyyyy before it did, when, in fact, Madoff Securities was only running a Ponzi scheme for barely even 20 years. Examine the evidence Madoff shared with Forbes contributor Diana B. Henriques via email:
Jan. 17, 2011 11:05 A.M. … Also remember that the U.S. Attorney admitted that they had no evidence that the crime started in the 80’s and could establish that Montauk and the N.Y. homes in Ruth’s name were not purchased with tainted funds …
Mar. 10, 2011 7:35 A.M. … I would love to know what evidence [Picard] has to date my crime back to 1983 … THE FACT IS THAT THERE IS NONE.
8:05 A.M. … I say once again the fraud started in the 90’s …
Mar. 18, 2011 9:26 A.M. … I guess I’m obsessed with this START OF CRIME ISSUE.
Don’t you see, idiots of the media?! That’s the real issue here. Not the crime itself but the start of the crime. Do the math. Read more »
April 7, 2009: The then Sir Allen Stanford chokes back tears over being deprived of being named Forbes’ 405th richest person in the world as a result of the Ponzi charges (which he described as “baloney” and told a reporter using the dirty word, “If you say Ponzi to my face again, I will punch you in the mouth”). Read more »
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