Jon Corzine To Get Off Scot-Free

So much for the rule of law:

A criminal investigation into the collapse of the brokerage firm MF Global and the disappearance of about $1 billion in customer money is now heading into its final stage without charges expected against any top executives

In the most telling indication yet that the MF Global investigation is winding down, federal authorities are seeking to interview the former chief of the firm, Jon S. Corzine, next month, according to the people involved in the case. Authorities hope that Mr. Corzine, who is expected to accept the invitation, will shed light on the actions of other employees at MF Global.

Those developments indicate that federal prosecutors do not expect to file criminal charges against the former New Jersey governor....


That wasn't what they were saying a few months ago:

The $633 million [now $1B] in missing client funds from Jon Corzine’s now-bankrupt firm MF Global appears to be a result of a “massive hide-and-seek ploy,” a US Commodity Futures Trading commissioner said yesterday.

“This isn’t just a lost-and-found inquiry; it’s a full-on effort to get to the bottom of what appears to be a massive hide-and-seek ploy,” said CFTC commissioner Bart Chilton said in disclosing the MF investigation.

“It’s a distinct possibility, some would say probability, that somebody has done something with the money, and that it’s not going to be ‘all of a sudden discovered’ with an innocent explanation,” Chilton wrote. “If that’s the case, it’s patently illegal.


They found the proof, all right:

Jon Corzine, MF Global Holding Ltd. (MFGLQ)’s chief executive officer, gave “direct instructions” to transfer $200 million from a customer fund account to meet an overdraft in a brokerage account with JPMorgan Chase & Co. (JPM), according to a memo written by congressional investigators.

Edith O’Brien, a treasurer for the firm, said in an e-mail quoted in the memo that the transfer was “Per JC’s direct instructions,” according to a copy of the memo obtained by Bloomberg News yesterday. The e-mail, dated Oct. 28, was sent three days before the company collapsed, the memo says.


...But Dirty Jon will still escape jail.  Wanna know why?

...despite President Obama decrying ‘Wall Street Fat Cats' - Corzine has already helped to raise at least half-million dollars for President Obama's re-election.
As for that half-million? The Obama campaign says it will give the money back - if Corzine is convicted of a crime.
But if history is our guide -the kind of Wall Street firms Corzine once ran became ‘Too Big to Fail.' Maybe Corzine himself will be too ‘Big to Jail...

 Not "too big". Just too valuable to Barack Obama. $500,000 in Barack's pockets is enough to let you get away with squandering - illegally - almost $1B of innocent's people's money.


Once we were a nation of laws.  President Obama felt the value of giving up that status was $500K.  A good deal for him in the short-term, I suppose, but money gets spent quickly, the rule of law is restored less so.  Something he might want to think about, as his time in office grows short, and others  - many with legitimate axes to grind - now wield the law for their own ends...