RICO and Goldman Sachs

"Goldman Sachs Leadership Arraigned," Says U.S. Attorney

Michael Moore, in his new movie, "Capitalism: A Love Story," shows up in Goldman Sachs' Wall Street lobby to make citizens' arrests of senior Goldman officials.

Puh-leeze!

Here's what Michael Moore should have demanded instead (whoever said we didn't need new laws to clean up financial corruption . . . was 100% correct):

Paulson, Blankfein, Others Arraigned on RICO Charges

(October 23, 2010) NY, NY. Citing multiple violations of RICO ("Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act"), the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of Manhattan today announced stunning, pre-dawn arrests of Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein, former Goldman head (and U.S. Treasury Secretary) Henry Paulson, and ten other current and former senior Goldman officials.

According to U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara, the allegations are serious and broad. "At their heart is an ongoing, organized effort by the firm to subvert U.S. policy in ways that self-interestedly benefited Goldman Sachs at the expense of U.S. taxpayers, the Federal Reserve, and myriad competing, financial institutions," Bharara solemnly intoned.

"Goldman's fingerprints are on virtually every piece of legislation designed to address the deterioration in the financial markets beginning in 2007, and continuing through the near-chaos that peaked in September, 2008," Bharara said.

"Indeed, we believe the pattern of inappropriate -- and, in fact, illegal -- contacts between various Goldman officials and U.S. policymakers constitutes self-dealing, insider trading, misappropriation of funds, and fraudulent misrepresentation," amongst other causes of action.

"The government plans to vigorously pursue these racketeering claims -- as clearly permitted by RICO -- and not rest until it achieves its aims of full divestiture, civil and criminal damages, forfeiture of ill-gotten gains, and, where appropriate, incarceration," Bharara continued.

Bharara announced that hearings to determine bail, as well to freeze Goldman assets (as allowed under RICO), would begin Friday morning.

In an unrelated development, Dan Brown announced that the subject of his new book would be Wall Street finance.

One can dream, right??

If a (very) rusty, former attorney-now Realtor can come up with the foregoing . . . imagine what a real-live one could do? Or several of them?