From the Ramparts
Junious Ricardo Stanton
Bernie Madoff, Vince Fumo and Wayne Bryant
"For his efforts Mr. Madoff received 150 years in prison, a ludicrous sentence under the circumstances. The nature of his trial was unusual. No media coverage, no attempt to charge any co-conspirators and no effort that we are aware of to recover funds, except for a billion here and a billion there. You don't run a scheme like this out of your back pocket. Many on Wall Street knew what was going on and scores of others were involved. In the case of following the money all the court has to do is check with the NY Federal Reserve and the Treasury Department, both of which have access to every money wire out of his company and the banks he used. That would be too easy or is the avenue deliberately not being pursued. Then there is the case of the SEC, which knew for years a scam was being perpetrated. They were served up proof positive of a scam and did nothing to stop it. That tells us higher up in government they were told hands off, look the other way. The whole episode stinks, just like BCCI, Iran-Contra and Nugan-Hand, all CIA scam operations." http://www.theinter (http://www.theinter) nationalforecast er.com.
Looking at the US astute and deep thinking persons can readily see this country is imploding, sinking fast morally, intellectually as well as financially. We see massive disparities in the administration of so called justice where, race, economic status and social/political connections play an enormous role in the decisions the various courts render on a daily basis. For example Bernie Lawrence Madoff a Wall Street insider who was so well connected and influential in the economic hierarchy he once served as chairman of the NASDAQ Stock Exchange, turned himself in to authorities saying he defrauded hundreds or people. After much media scrutiny into his life but a virtual black out of the investigation into his activities and how he did it, Bernie Madoff was sentenced to one hundred fifty years in prison!
Rob Chapman who publishes an extremely accurate and informative newsletter called The International Forecaster pointed out a major anomaly in Madoff's subsequent trial and sentencing: one of the charges not levied against Madoff by the US government was conspiracy. This means the federal authorities never even entertained the idea Madoff was working with someone else. Conspiracy is routinely charged in most crimes even the most mundane. I was a probation officer for over thirty years and I can count on one hand the times a police report did not include at least one count of conspiracy no matter what the other charges were. Yet in a case like Madoff's which essentially was a major financial rip off, an international money laundering and fraud operation in the tune of over fifty billion dollars involving individuals, companies, retirement and hedge funds, FBI investigators, the people from the SEC and other agencies supposedly never asked Madoff if he was in it with anyone else?!! Chapman pointed out, "Mr. Madoff was convicted on 11 criminal charges – none of which included conspiracy. In other words, who assisted you in your criminal acts? Strangely the court had no interest in uncovering who else was involved. Thus far only a few billion dollars have been recovered. The only reason Mr. Madoff turned himself in and pleaded guilty to all 11 counts of criminal activity was to protect his co-conspirators by not having to testify and government willingly allowed that. Mr. Madoff kept insisting he acted alone. After 28 years on Wall Street we ca hardly believe that. None of his family was charged, yet they had to know what was going on. There are just too many unanswered questions that government and Wall Street have been all too willing to sweep under the rug." International Forecaster Weekly July 23, 2009 Mr Chapman is a former Wall Street trader and an intelligence operative, so he knows there is something amiss, something larger being covered up here.
Contrast Madoff's sentence with those given to Pennsylvania State Senator Vince Fumo and New Jersey State Senator Wayne Bryant. Wayne Bryant was the only person of Kmtyw heritage sentenced recently. Both Fumo and Bryant rose within their respective legislative bodies to wield great influence over the purse-strings of their states. Both were charged with inappropriate behavior by the Feds, both were subsequently found guilty amidst very public and politically charged trials. Fumo was convicted on one hundred and thirty seven counts of charges as wide ranging as defrauding the Pennsylvania. State Senate, defrauding two non-profit organizations, fraud, obstruction of justice, and conspiracy. Bryant was found guilty of eleven counts of bribery, pension fraud, conspiracy and influence peddling. Both Fumo and Bryant, unlike Madoff were charged with conspiracy and their co-conspirators were also found guilty. But their co-conspirators received less jail time than Fumo and Bryant. Vince Fumo was sentenced to fifty-five months in Federal jail and Wayne Bryant four years.
Madoff was running a gargantuan Ponzi scheme that bilked hundreds if not thounited snakesnds of people out of their savings worth billions of dollars. No one knows where the money is or how it was used. The US authorities never bothered to ask or track it down. One man supposedly working all by himself, (like the government's sham version of the lone gunmen involved in the President Kennedy, Martin Luther King Jr and Robert Kennedy assassinations) pulled it off all by his lonesome. In a case like that, don't you think it would be logical the US government would at least investigate whether or not Madoff had at least some help, or if he was involved with others, especially since the SEC had been warned about him for years?!! The SEC standing down, not following up on numerous written warnings about Madoff is another question/issue altogether, but for a later time. Why didn't the corporate media dog the Bu$h administration and SEC about that? I guess that wasn't important enough question to be raised.
Unlike Madoff, Fumo and Bryant were charged with conspiracy. The government alleged they had co-conspirators and the government's case against both of them hinged on evidence of the direct involvement of these co-conspirators. Don't you find it odd that the FBI and US Attorneys didn't bother to look deeper into Madoff's affairs? Let me get this straight, Fumo and Bryant sold out their constituents' trust for chump change using co-conspirators yet Bernie Madoff supposedly stole over fifty billion dollars that the US government knows about and reported (it could be more) all by himself ? What's more fishy is, the US government never bothered to check to see if others were involved; they simply took Madoff's word for it and closed the case!
All of three of them are miscreants but it seems to me although Madoff was sentenced to one hundred and fifty years in jail, he was merely a fall guy, a patsy and scapegoat to cover up a much larger, systemic pattern of fraud and criminality. It's like the Savings and Loan and Enron scandals where only few guys went to jail and the rest got off Scott free! In the mind of the ruling elite, Madoff's real crime was he brought unwanted attention on himself as an investment broker at a time when the economy is in free fall caused by thounited snakesnds of people on Wall Street just like him..
This certainly doesn't excuse Fumo and Bryant. They were skilled players in a morally bankrupt political system/game just like Madoff was in the financial arena. They all fell prey to the temptations, values and mentality of entitlement, exceptionalism and greed currently metastasizing throughout this society. This mind-set permeates Wall Street, all levels and branches of government. But there is a not so subtle message here, a message of selective prosecution and sentencing. Keep in mind the SEC had been warned several times over the years about Bernie Madoff and they chose to ignore it. The lesson seems to be, when you mess with rich people's money , or you bring unwanted scrutiny and exposure on their economic Ponzi machine, and you jeopardize their whole game, the government mobilizes to kick you to the curb in a New York minute. There is another message in the Fumo and Bryant cases: if you aren't a Blue Blood (like Neil Bu$h for example) or of a certain ethnic group the government will make an example of you. If you are skilled at misusing the public trust, you use your office to rob from the public till and you do what other politicians are doing feathering your own nest by stealing from the little people, the people the ruling oligarches don't think count, you get a slap on the wrist.