RollingStone

Finally, a Judge Stands up to Wall Street - Matt Taibbi

Judge Jed Rakoff

Federal Judge Jed Rakoff, a former prosecutor with the U.S. Attorney’s office here in New York, is fast becoming a sort of legal hero of our time. He showed that again yesterday when he shat all over the SEC’s latest dirty settlement with serial fraud offender Citigroup, refusing to let the captured regulatory agency sweep yet another case of high-level criminal malfeasance under the rug.

The SEC had brought an action against Citigroup for misleading investors about the way a certain package of mortgage-backed assets had been chosen. The case is very similar to the notorious Abacus case involving Goldman Sachs, in which Goldman allowed short-selling billionaire John Paulson (who was betting against the package) to pick the assets, then told a pair of European banks that the “designed to fail” package they were buying had been put together independently.  

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Wall Street Journal

Judge Unloads on Deal SEC Struck With Citi - CHAD BRAY

A federal judge sharply questioned the Securities and Exchange Commission about why it didn't force Citigroup Inc. to admit to "what the facts are" before the agency agreed to settle a mortgage-bond case for $285 million.

During an hour-long hearing Wednesday, U.S. District Judge Jed S. Rakoff, an outspoken critic of the SEC's approach to securities-fraud settlements, challenged the SEC on why the regulator allowed Citigroup to settle the case using boilerplate language in which it neither admits or denies wrongdoing.

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Bank of America Turns Judge Rakoff into a Modern-Day Robin Hood

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Rakoff graduated from Swarthmore College,Oxford University and Harvard Law School. In 1995, Rakoff was nominated by President Bill Clinton to fill a seat on the Federal Court of the Southern District of New York and was appointed on January 4, 1996.

Known as a maverick in some legal circles, Judge Rakoff has ruled the death penalty illegal, inserted himself into corporate governance reform at WorldCom, and pushed for the release of documents in private settlements."