This diary spun through last night. For a reminder that nothing much has changed....
January 25th was the seventh anniversary of the slaughter of a Manhattan office worker, Florence Cioffi. She was 59 years old, a few days short of turning sixty. The criminal responsible was Enterprise Engineering, Inc.'s Chairman and CEO George Anderson.
Here is Nana:
The infamy of the case stems from a major crime: the combination of admitted/tested DUI, driving 60 m.p.h. on a city street, hitting a woman trying to hail a cab, and fleeing the scene. No assistance was rendered. Then the following year in a display of raw Wall Street power a deal was arranged with the Manhattan D.A. to resolve criminal liability with a 16-day sentence at Rikers Island, a $350 fine and community service.
Anderson stepped out of the limelight temporarily. He is back in place with full advantage. His office faces Zuccotti Park from the south.
There has been no follow up in corporate media. Careers returned to normal. There is no impact. Florence Cioffi is gone and forgotten, her life recalled if at all as a cause for temporary embarrassment to those in power in New York City.
Media coverage started in 2008 with the Post, the New York Times, and the area television stations. However, when Anderson was let off, our corporate press whimpered once, each, and fell silent.
Fact is, crimes have not been prosecuted in New York on financial industry criminals since the first round of Dot.com scams in the early/mid 1990's. Vehicular Manslaughter, here, in this example was one small step further into that abyss.
Posting of this remembrance has been delayed, again, to enable another assessment of information concerning the career path of David Hammer, Esq. He was the prosecutor who took the plea deal to court that dropped these multiple felony charges. He offered up a novel and then unique technique for voiding the New York State mandatory sentencing requirement. He defeated the State's Attorney General office and everyone connected with M.A.D.D. He remains in the management track as an Assistant District Attorney holding position as Deputy Bureau Chief. That guy's career is a skyrocket.
That deal has paid off nicely. For everyone, eh?
More below the fold.
David Hammer continues to teach Trial Advocacy at Pace University Law School.
Back in 2008 and 2009 Hammer was assigned to prosecute CEO Anderson for these felonies: vehicular manslaughter, criminally negligent homicide, felony DUI, and leaving the scene. Anderson had been indicted by a Grand Jury. The actions underlying these charges were all admitted. Evidence had been presented successfully to the Grand Jury and it was overwhelming, including multiple eye witness accounts and video.
The DUI was proved when detectives obtained a court order and had Anderson taken over for a hospital blood test.
No effort was made by Anderson or by a passenger in his SUV to render assistance to the victim.
Video cameras clocked the SUV at 60 m.p.h. flying up Water Street, then weaving around a bend in the road. "Nana" was thrown in the air as Anderson's Mercedes-Benz SUV took off. Here is a good summary:
The terrorists have won: Reflections on death by SUV
By Charles Komanoff
ADA David Hammer was the one who said that "(Cioffi) probably stepped out from between two parked cars" - feigning ignorance of the multiple surveillance videos. In fact, eye witness accounts had her trying to hail a cab.
He then concocted "proportional blame" as a new scheme for blaming the victim. Hailing a cab is now sufficient excuse for getting killed. Of course this was approved up and down the flag pole at the DA's office. Instead of statutory minimum, CEO George Anderson got 16 days in jail and the $350 fine instead of the minimum 1 year in a prison.
So... if you head a Wall Street company you can go to a Rangers hockey game, get drunk, drive recklessly at twice the going speed limit, plow down an ordinary office worker. The system will take care of you because you are who and what you are.
Maybe some money changes hands, but if so then we remain in the dark about it.
Dickens had it right more than a century ago. Well worth an annual reread. Indeed, how is any of this different from the carriage scene from "A Tale of Two Cities:
The complaint had sometimes made itself audible, even in that deaf city and dumb age, that, in the narrow streets without footways, the fierce patrician custom of hard driving endangered and maimed the mere vulgar in a barbarous manner. But, few cared enough for that to think of it a second time, and, in this matter, as in all others, the common wretches were left to get out of their difficulties as they could.
With a wild rattle and clatter, and an inhuman abandonment of consideration not easy to be understood in these days, the carriage dashed through streets and swept round corners, with women screaming before it, and men clutching each other and clutching children out of its way. At last, swooping at a street corner by a fountain, one of its wheels came to a sickening little jolt, and there was a loud cry from a number of voices, and the horses reared and plunged.
But for the latter inconvenience, the carriage probably would not have stopped; carriages were often known to drive on, and leave their wounded behind, and why not? But the frightened valet had got down in a hurry, and there were twenty hands at the horses' bridles.
"What has gone wrong?" said Monsieur, calmly looking out.
A tall man in a nightcap had caught up a bundle from among the feet of the horses, and had laid it on the basement of the fountain, and was down in the mud and wet, howling over it like a wild animal.
"Pardon, Monsieur the Marquis!" said a ragged and submissive man, "it is a child."
"Why does he make that abominable noise? Is it his child?"
"Excuse me, Monsieur the Marquis -- it is a pity -- yes."
The fountain was a little removed; for the street opened, where it was, into a space some ten or twelve yards square. As the tall man suddenly got up from the ground, and came running at the carriage, Monsieur the Marquis clapped his hand for an instant on his sword-hilt.
"Killed!" shrieked the man, in wild desperation, extending both arms at their length above his head, and staring at him. "Dead!"
The people closed round, and looked at Monsieur the Marquis. There was nothing revealed by the many eyes that looked at him but watchfulness and eagerness; there was no visible menacing or anger. Neither did the people say anything; after the first cry, they had been silent, and they remained so. The voice of the submissive man who had spoken, was flat and tame in its extreme submission. Monsieur the Marquis ran his eyes over them all, as if they had been mere rats come out of their holes.
He took out his purse.
"It is extraordinary to me," said he, "that you people cannot take care of yourselves and your children. One or the other of you is for ever in the way. How do I know what injury you have done my horses. See! Give him that."
He threw out a gold coin for the valet to pick up, and all the heads craned forward that all the eyes might look down at it as it fell. The tall man called out again with a most unearthly cry, "Dead!"
He was arrested by the quick arrival of another man, for whom the rest made way. On seeing him, the miserable creature fell upon his shoulder, sobbing and crying, and pointing to the fountain, where some women were stooping over the motionless bundle, and moving gently about it. They were as silent, however, as the men.
"I know all, I know all," said the last comer. "Be a brave man, my Gaspard! It is better for the poor little plaything to die so, than to live.
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Charles Dickens considered France at the time of the Revolution to be a society where Law had ceased to function as an instrument of social justice. Sovereign power had been handed over to the Nobles. The concept of "crime" had been placed into private hands for redefinition to suit their convenience.
America has something similar going with our paranoid billionaires and the Dominionist religious fanatics. They dearly love it when their five-member majority on the Supreme Court make new law to protect their interests.
-- Naked shorts
As prime example: laws against Wall Street fraud have been erased wholesale. New York Stock Exchange can void fraud laws (by writing new "rules".)
Goldman, Sachs and the largest of their rivals can now sell blocks of 10,00 shares of registered stocks that they do not own.
This is called a "naked short" everywhere else in the world. It is illegal. It is fraud.
But in New York computerized trading predominates. These major brokers are allowed to drive down the prices of any issues they choose to attack without owning or borrowing shares of the stock they are "selling."
Then, after they drive the market down, the NYSE Rules allow these insiders to default on delivery, voiding the sales.
Amazing. And yet another criminal legacy from the Bush43 years.
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Don't get your hopes up for much in the way of Rule of Law. Certainly not related to Wall street.
Florence Cioffi died about the same time as our Common Law fraud statutes. Ladies and gentlemen, we do share a small problem. Efforts at applying our criminal law to Wall Street have failed.
As for "Nana," she has been gone seven years. She escaped from World Trade Center on 9/11 in that beautiful weather of 2001 before her Tower collapsed. She had gone downstairs for coffee. Then in 2008 she had no warning whatsoever before being smash by Anderson's SUV. When you look at the picture above, you see her.
God bless.