Financial Fraud

Lamont Cooper has been charged with allegedly operating his Buffalo-based debt collection agency while incarcerated in federal prison on unrelated charges. Cooper was previously barred by court order from the debt collection industry in 2009 after New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo’s office determined that his operation regularly used threats and intimidation against consumers. 

A former suburban bank vice president has pleaded guilty to federal fraud charges, admitting that he changed the terms of at least 100 loans for at least 50 customers and caused the bank to lose at least $5.5 million.

One benefit of the federal system in which we live is that there are 50 different state “laboratories” that can come up with their own solutions to the problems we face. Indiana has created a rather interesting method for solving a troublesome issue stemming from the failure of American Escrow, a Chicago-based company.

Even the United Nations has someone looking to make sure its money is properly spent and accounted for. Her name is Carman Lapointe-Young, and the U.N. General Assembly has just approved her to be Under-Secretary-General for the Office of Internal Oversight Services (“OIOS”). Since February 2009,

FBI Director Robert S. Mueller, III, testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee today and spoke about a number of important subjects, including many that interest us here at the Financial Fraud Law blog.

Under the Sentencing Reform Act of 1984, the Criminal Division of the Department of Justice is required to submit to the U.S. Sentencing Commission, at least annually, a report commenting on the operation of the sentencing guidelines, suggesting changes in the guidelines that appear to be warranted, and otherwise assessing the Commission’s work.

Over the past few days, we’ve taken a mid-year review of the top 10 financial fraud law issues we chose at the end of last year to see what’s what. There’s one left; we called it the “Changing Legal Landscape.” We believed then, and we strongly continue to believe now, that this indeed is the most important financial fraud law issue of the year. It's Number 1.

Today, let’s focus on how we did on three more of our Top 10 Financial Fraud Law issues from the end of last year. We said the #4 issue was the increase of personal liability, from attacks on executive compensation to more and more civil and criminal financial fraud lawsuits filed against individuals. Without a doubt, personal liability is a continuing big, big issue this year. 

Looking at the morning papers, we are very troubled by what we read in an excellent article in the Washington Post, by Dan Morse, about the significant growth in financial fraud scams against senior citizens. One sentence in particular is quite chilling: “Senior citizens lose at least $2.6 billion a year to thieves, many of whom are in their own families, according to a study last year by the MetLife Mature Market Institute.” 

Yesterday, we started a mid-year review of the issues we highlighted last December, focusing on the 8th, 9th, and 10th most important Financial Fraud Law issues of the year. Today, let’s look at Numbers 7, 6, and 5.