The Economic Meltdown; Who Pays and Who Doesn’t

One of them is on the lam having apparently crudely faked his suicide. Thus, Samuel Israel III has, as of this writing, avoided being part of the perp walk dramas of last week. His woman friend however, was arrested and charged with helping him arrange the ruse. That same day in Brooklyn, hedge fund executives Ralph R. Cioffi and Matthew Tannin were cuffed and led away, accused by the Federal Bureau of Investigation of “premeditated lies to investors and lenders.” The two were executives at the Bears Sterns investment bank that was recently bailed out with a $29 billion federal loan guarantee backed up with taxpayer money that made possible a takeover of the firm by JP Morgan.

While all this was going on the feds revealed that under the banner “Operation Malicious Mortgage” they had already this year secured indictments against 406 people on charges related to individual mortgage transactions. Sixty of them were arrested June 18. They were accused of such tings as lending fraud, foreclosure and bankruptcy schemes that bilked people to the combined tune of $1 billion.