Too Big to Jail? Cuomo Takes $20M to "Settle" Carlyle Group's Pension Fraud Role

[Stephanie]

http://blogs.villagevoice.com/runninscared/archives/2009/05/too_big_to_jail.php

Too Big to Jail? Cuomo Takes $20M to "Settle" Carlyle Group's Pension Fraud Role
By Roy Edroso

Andrew Cuomo (pictured) has indicted some big fish in the pension fund scandals, but as far as the powerful Carlyle Group goes, he's content just to take the money. Having admitted to paying indicted "placement agent" Hank Morris over $13 million to influence pension fund investments to their advantage, the Group has agreed to pay $20 million to "resolve its role" in the scandal. In exchange, no one from Carlyle gets indicted.

Carlyle execs say they didn't know any monkey business was going on, and intend to sue Morris, claiming http://www.bizjournals.com/washington/stories/2009/05/11/daily75.html">they were "victimized by Hank Morris's alleged web of deceit" -- which seems rather rich, since Morris is thought to have steered over $730 million dollars in pension money to Carlyle since they took him up, and $20 million off the top to settle a legal complication seems not so much.

The Carlyle Group is a multi-billion-dollar investment firm whose investors have included the first President Bush; its New York offices were the site of a contentious protest at the outset of the Iraq War, and the company's role in the Bush family finances and the war investigated in Michael Moore's Fahrenheit 911.

[ThomCat]

1. Damn it. Corporatations have too much freedom to violate laws

with impunity. At some point violating the law needs to start resulting in pulling corporate charters.

If your corporation is a person, then if your corporation gets convicted of something the charger goes to jail. It gets suspended for the duration of the jail term. All business ceases for the duration of the jail term.

Then I wouldn't mind corporate personhood quite so much. x(

[Wapsie B]

2. Pulling the charters would be good

along with piercing the corporate veil of protection for these large companies.

[ThomCat]

3. I agree. The protection that corporate executives have

against prosecution for misconduct is far too strong. They can break laws, hurt too many people, and get away with it because it's business. :(

[Stephanie]

4. Will Pitt article on Carlyle from 2006:

http://www.truthout.org/article/the-carlyle-white-house

The Carlyle White House
The Carlyle White House
By William Rivers Pitt
t r u t h o u t | Columnist

Tuesday 14 November 2006

It was bad enough when the Carlyle Group bought Dunkin' Donuts last year, forcing millions of conscientious caffeine addicts to look elsewhere for their daily fix. Now, it appears Carlyle has added 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue to its formidable portfolio of acquisitions.

The Carlyle Group achieved national attention in the early days of the Iraq occupation, especially after Michael Moore's "Fahrenheit 9/11" exposed the firm's umbilical ties to the Bush family and the House of Saud. For the uninitiated, Carlyle is a privately-owned equity firm organized and run by former members of the Reagan and Bush Sr. administrations.

Currently, Carlyle manages more than $44 billion in 42 different investment funds, which is an interesting fact in and of itself: Carlyle could lay claim to only a meager $12 billion in funds in December of 2001. Thanks to their ownership of United Defense Industries, a major military contractor that sells a whole galaxy of weapons systems to the Pentagon, Carlyle's profits skyrocketed after the invasion and occupation of Iraq.

Some notable present and former employees of Carlyle include former president George H.W. Bush, who resigned in 2003; James Baker III, Bush Sr.'s secretary of state and king fixer; and George W. Bush, who served on Carlyle's board of directors until his run for the Texas governorship. One notable former client of Carlyle was the Saudi BinLaden Group, which sold its investment back to the firm a month after the September 11 attacks. Until the October 2001 sellout, Osama bin Laden himself had a financial interest in the same firm that employed the two presidents Bush.

==more at link==