One, a TV personality with a brand empire, got involved in a petty insider trading scheme. She lied to the Feds and that cost her prison time.
The other, a former US Senator and Governor of New Jersey ripped off MF Global clients to the tune of $1.6 billion, and may have lied to a Congressional Committee investigating the misuse of client funds, and numerous SEC regulations regarding client funds may have been broken. Big, serious stuff, much bigger than Ms. Stewart’s legal problems.
An October 28Th e-mail has been discovered that shows Edith O’Brien, an assistant treasurer wrote that $200 million was transferred to an MF Global account at J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. was per “JC’s direct instructions. JC, being Jon Corzine. It was needed to fix a $175 million overdraft that made it harder to buy and trade securities.
Customer accounts hold both firm money and customer money. Customer money is not to be touched per federal regulations. The House subcommittee will hold a hearing tomorrow probe this further. Corzine, naturally, denies any knowledge that customer funds were touched.
It will be interesting to see how this plays out. Will Democrats circle the wagons like they have with Charles Rangle and give Corzine a slap on the wrist, or will they give him the Martha Stewart treatment multiplied by the degree of his malfeasance? Will a member of the club get special treatment?
Watch this closely. The Feds can’t even find the missing money after all this time. MG Global left hedge funds, farmers, ranchers and other investors with huge losses. If Corzine is guilty as the e-mail would suggest, he needs to receive appropriate treatment even though he is a personal friend of Obama.
If he skates, you are watching Chicago politics at it’s worst.
