Why is that?
Because he hasn’t been charged with a crime. The FBI was just serving him with a civil suit from the SEC.
This also seems to be self-explanatory. He hasn’t been arrested and charged yet.
Ok, it hasn’t happened yet. But why would they delay the process? I don’t understand how a petty theif can be jailed instantly, but not someone who defrauded several thousands of people and businesses over several years.
My main concern about this guy, and Madoff, is that there isn’t really anything in place to prevent them from commiting suicide. They’re free to live in their posh living conditions waiting for basically a SEC commision. If they kill themselves, they cannot be held accountable. I think that’s important.
Your question is odd. You are putting the cart about ten miles before the horse. R. Allen Stanford is a fine upstanding citizen in the eyes of the law all the way until the government can prove beyond a reasonable doubt that he did something wrong. The authorities are apparently investigating him and will bring charges when they believe they’ve found solid evidence of wrongdoing.
If they kill themselves, it saves us the expense of a trial and incarceration. I say give them a pistol, one round of ammo, a private room, and an hour.
I don’t think they’d commit suicide, much as that would make a lot of us feel better. I believe they feel embarrassed at being caught, and of course worried, looking down the road at a jail sentence; but to commit suicide they would have to be devastated by the knowledge they have destroyed so many peoples lives, and I just don’t think it bothers them all that much. There is something wrong with the way they think and interact with the world… The super rich are different from you and me, and I wish I could elucidate on just how. ( Maybe someone here can find an explanation of just what money does to you and how even if you have a billion dollars a year, it’s never enought.)…Madoff is going to be sitting in his New York penthouse enjoying the good life for a long time. He has scores of the best lawyers on the planet working for him, and even if he does go to prison, hey, he’s 70, isn’t he? Not that much time left for him to sit in the Big House. When he does, it won’t be on a grubby cot with baloney sammiches every day. Not with all that money.
It will take a team of accountants and auditors months to go through whatever records he might have to determine what he might have done wrong. A petty thief’s crime is immediately obvious. Financial crimes are so complex that proof of wrongdoing is a full-time career. Getting him stopped and compiling the evidence to charge him for specific crimes are totally separate. Television arrests are basically science fiction.
Well, they don’t need to prove anything beyond a reasonable doubt in order to arrest and try him. They just need to have enough evidence to justify charging him with a crime.
But yes, he is officially innocent in the eyes of the law right up to the moment when the judge bangs down the gavel.
I disagree. The fraud is fairly evident, regardless of the investigation. How many people are arrested daily on suspicion while an investigation is carried out until court? Replace Allen Stanford with Casey Anthony and you’ll see my point. Yes, murder and financial fraud are different animals, but the end result for both is that they destroy lives. So what is wrong with arresting the man with a charge of fraud, and then do the investigation? What facutally seperates this mans crimes with that of another who has yet to be proven innocent? I’m not trying to debate, but rather trying to figure why his crimes are treated differently than those of regular people and their crimes.
If a mod detects snark and debate, I’ll understand the move to GD. I really am interested in why he was not arrested vs. those that are on the basis of suspicion. If anything, did he not evade FBI by running to Virginia and hiding out? If I performed a white-collared crime of say $10,000 from my company and ran to Virginia, my circumstances would likely be different and would have been arrested. Why is this? That’s my basic premise.
Yes, which is why I said: “The authorities are apparently investigating him and will bring charges when they believe they’ve found solid evidence of wrongdoing.”
The authorities have confiscated Stanford’s passport. You can be assured that the authorities are keeping a very close eye on the guy. I’m pretty sure he’s not going to get away.
One possible reason is tactical. If you arrest and charge him, he could, in theory, invoke his right to a speedy trial. This could force the Government into going to trial before they’ve got the evidence needed to convict. Better to use civil measures to put him out of business and keep building the case to nail the bastard in open court later.
Ok, I can see this being a fairly good reason that I didn’t think of.
You don’t generally arrest people for murder without first doing an investigation either.
I disagree about the fraud. I was an internal auditor and I can virtually ALWAYS find enough mistakes to have someone arrested. The thing is you’d have to PROVE criminal intent and that is harder.
But the OP seems to really be asking “WHY” does the “little guy” get arrested immediately and the “big corporate guy” get to go free.
And this probably involves a lot of legal things. A rich important guy has tons of lawyers to tie up the system whereas the little guy is pretty much hard up to get a lawyer to defend him from the most basic charges.
So there is no point arresting the big corporate guy, letting him post bail and then he’ll immediately start using his weath to fight back and tie up the cops and the legal system.
This way the cops and lawyers have much more room to operate. Remember even if the fraud is very obvious they DA wants to get THE MOST evidence and the BEST evidence that will produce the case that will result in THE MOST SERIOUS charges, that carry the MOST JAIL time.
This is the problem with American courts, we are taught to believe the courts are about finding justice and being fair. The courts are set up to produce convictions. Therefore until the DA is sure he can get the conviction for the charge that will make him look the best he won’t procede.
You see a DA is gonna look pretty stupid if he starts with his plan, wastes millions of dollars in tax payer funds and winds up with nothing but a petty charge and conviction