don't mess with Da Feds...

Some closure this week on the WorldCom and Enron fronts:

Bernie Ebbers To Start Serving 25 Year Sentence

WorldCom founder Bernie Ebbers, age 65, will report to federal prison tomorrow to begin serving his 25 year sentence for fraud. For Ebbers, it is a life sentence.

In the category of longest prison sentence, WorldCom Inc. founder Bernard J. Ebbers recently bested the organizer of an armed robbery, the leaders of a Bronx drug gang and the acting boss of the Gambino crime family.

Also on Tuesday, Enron's former Chief Financial Officer Andrew Fastow will be sentenced. He cooperated with the Government and faces no more than ten years in prison.

Exercising one's constitutional right to a jury trial has never been more perilous. Ebbers' cohort, Scott Sullivan, the architect of the WorldCom scheme, was sentenced to only five years after he decided to cooperate and testify against Ebbers. Ken Lay was facing 25 years after his conviction, and Jeff Skilling is looking at the same, after they went to trial and were convicted, in large part due to Fastow's testimony against them.

[via TalkLeft: The Politics of Crime]

I don't know if our right to a jury trial is in any more danger now than any other time based on the WorldCom and Enron prosecutions. There are decades of examples of Asst. US Attorneys climbing up the food chains of drug organizations, crime families, you name it. Does that lessen the impact of Bernie Ebbers' life sentence? No, it's still an extreme example. Fastow cooperated with the feds, but he's still a crook:

In 2002, Fastow was charged with fraud and money laundering in a 78-count indictment. He pleaded not guilty and was preparing to fight the charges when the government brought tax-fraud charges against his wife, Lea, also a former executive. He pleaded guilty in 2004 to one charge of conspiracy to commit wire fraud and one charge of conspiracy to commit wire and securities fraud. He agreed to forfeit $23.8 million and serve a 10-year sentence, the maximum allowed. His wife also agreed to a plea deal and served one year.

Da Feds used a typical tactic to get Fastow to roll on his bosses. Fastow's wife was also up to her eyeballs in this mess, so he cooperated to get her a better deal (she only served one year in prison). They're giving back $23.8 million in ill-gotten gains. A guy on the street can get ten years for robbing me of my wallet. I'm not going to shed too many tears for a guy who is giving back $23.8 million. The feds have been getting street-level drug dealers to roll on their suppliers for years. When middle-class folks get wrapped up in the drug trade, it can ruin families, and prosecutors regularly play on those relationships to turn suspects into informants. This is a fundamental part of the way we hunt down violators of federal law. I'm OK with revisiting these tactics in general, but if an AUSA can use them against a waitress making $30K/year, I'm OK with disrupting the Fastow family by the same means.

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