FEDERAL JAIL FOR BORROWERS AS CHASE BANK PAYS BILLIONS TO BUY OUT OF CRIMINAL PROSECUTION

My favorite Banker

While the U.S. Attorney General negotiates billions of dollars in a  monetary settlement with J.P. Morgan Bank that will require the bank to acknowledge unlawful mortgage-backed security fraud, one wonders how bankers have avoided criminal responsibility and jail time.


According to press reports the focus of concern for the beleaguered  CEO of J.P. Morgan Chase Bank in his negotiations with our federal government is fear of criminal liability:

A major sticking point in the talks between J.P. Morgan and Justice has been how to resolve a criminal probe of the bank's conduct.
Within the Justice Department, some officials believe they have built a viable criminal case to bring against J.P. Morgan for some mortgage-backed securities issued before the financial crisis, according to people familiar with the discussions. Investigators have been examining whether the bank misled investors about the nature of the underlying mortgages backing those securities, according to people familiar with the case.

If American banks and wealthy bankers who control them can buy their way out of criminal prosecutions, shouldn't ordinary Americans be allowed to do the same? After all wasn't it the greed of the bankers with real estate investors not to mention average Americans over their heads in housing debt that caused the financial meltdown. Yet the bankers got bonuses while the borrowers got jail. Many investors and borrowers of who failed to pay signature mortgage loans received grand jury federal mortgage fraud indictments with plenty of jail time once they were convicted. But of the bankers who profited the most not one has been indicted nor punished. 

The banks and their leaders should be criminally prosecuted if they committed crimes. What the bankers understandably fear is that under the Federal Sentencing Guidelines systemic mortgage fraud like any theft would be punished based on the dollar amount involved resulting in many years of Federal imprisonment for any banker convicted. As the dollar amount attributed to the offenses would be astronomical so too would be the jail time though defense lawyers would try to find the best ways to avoid guideline ranges. 

Banks and bankers should not be allowed to avoid criminal prosecution by buying off the government of the United States. If law has any meaning in America it must apply equally to every person and to every business entity no matter how powerful. If the bankers have committed federal crime, prosecute them, and if they need a federal criminal defense attorney tell them to give me a call.