Here are a few examples of our Criminal Justice system at work. As you will see, it is about careers.

Rudy Giuliani and his flak jacketed team burst onto two major Wall Street trading floors in 1989 to arrest Bob Freeman and Richard Wigton. Behind the back handcuffs, perp walk, TV news crews on the street to catch the action. They also caught Rudy saying, “There is a new Sheriff on Wall Street”. Three years later Rudy was Mayor. Two years after that, junior prosecutors from Rudy’s SDNY Fed team said, “We had nothing on Freeman and Wigton”. Neither Freeman nor Wigton worked again, their reputations in unfounded tatters.

Nicholas Marsh was a 37 year old Federal Prosecutor in the elite PIN unit in DC. He and his team won a conviction for corruption against Senator Ted Steven of Alaska. There was only one problem. Marsh and his team knew of exculpatory evidence that would exonerate Stevens. They hid it. After it was found out, Marsh unfortunately went to his basement and hung himself leaving two children and a wife.

In the 1990s Sol Wachtler was the Chief Justice of the New York State Supreme Court. He also had a consensual affair with a woman for five years. Due to his undiagnosed bi-polar nature, he broke it off and then wanted her back. He wrote two desperate notes to her and she shared the second with Michael Chertoff, the US Attorney from Northern NJ. At one point Chertoff had more than 100 FBI agents tracking Wachtler and his ex-girlfriend, hoping for a confrontation, but there never was one. So they arrested Wachtler on the basis of the notes and convicted him of harassment. Wachtler resigned, and then spent a year at a Federal hospital prison. Taking down the Supreme Court Chief was Chertoff’s crowning glory and he went on to be the first Secretary of Homeland Security.

Howard Root was the CEO of Vascular Systems Ind, a $600MM medical technology company. He was charged with allowing his sales force to misrepresent the US versus Europe product approvals for a small subsidiary. There was no proof and the company defended its practice of clearly delineated the slight difference. Rather than plead out his case, Howard did what only 1% of indicted people do, he fought it. It took four years and $20 MM to get to trial. The jury heard the evidence and spent 45 minutes deliberating before issuing a 12-0 rebuke to a prosecutor looking for his case, the one that would get him the promotion.

When Greg Rorke was arrested, the 1010WINS radio station repeated the news, Columbia Professor Charged. The FBI agent preened around the office accepting the high fives, except Rorke later showed that 90% of the charges were unfounded and completely unresearched. The agent and the Assistant US Attorney did not make one hour’s effort to check any part of the evidence over a 22 month period. They effectively lied to a grand jury. And then they fabricated a better story to hide their incompetence.

This is the world we live in– 25% of the world’s prisoners and 5% of the world’s population. Are we a morally derelict society? The US justice system is a jobs program and it is not just Senators, Wall Street Traders, CEO’s or Chief Justices that get caught in the grinder. Millions of others do too, but if your case gets your prosecutor on the news, watch out.