Florence Cioffi. At Zuccotti Park, above the big vermillion Joie de Vivre statue, please look up...

[vets74]

...directly across the street to the south. Consider the corner offices running up the east end of 115 Broadway, the office building directly across the street.

Way up there you get to the 17th Floor. That corner office.

That is the particular office that belongs to George Anderson, who on January 25th, 2008, as CEO of Enterprise Engineering, Inc., the Wall Street tech powerhouse, caused the death of Florence Cioffi. That was a flagrant DUI hit-and-run homicide. New York State minimum sentence for the felony crime is 3 years in prison.

Killed. Dead. Mangled.

But not any three years for Wall Street. This was like the Dot.com megascams where almost no one was prosecuted. Certainly not cause to worry for Wall Street 1%ers.

This Mr. Anderson of the 17th Floor corner office had been to a Rangers hockey game. Drank heavily. Then he came back down to Wall Street, got in his Mercedes SUV and gunned it toward his mansion on Long Island. Video cameras clocked the SUV at 60 m.p.h. weaving up Water Street, then barely negotiating a bend to the driver's right before slamming into Ms. Cioffi.



This 59-year old office worker was thrown 120 feet.

The SUV kept going, leaving the scene of the accident. The action was captured by at least three surveillance video cameras. What followed as the charges wended through the system showed where the real power lies as clearly as any legal procedure in American history.

Original charges: vehicular manslaughter, criminally negligent homicide, felony DUI, and leaving the scene. These charges were admitted. Every element of each crime was proved. The DUI was proved with a hospital blood test. Eventually Anderson returned to the scene of the crime that evening and admitted then and there what he had done. He also affirmed his guilt in Court.

Eventually, in 2009, the Manhattan Prosecutor office assigned a new ADA, David Hammer, who feigning ignorance of the multiple surveillance videos and of eye witness accounts that had Ms. Cioffi trying to hail a cab.

The original charges were dismissed or reduced to misdemeanors. ADA David Hammer pushed through "a rich man's sentence" 16 days and a $350 fine. Despite that this deal violated New York State sentencing minimums and violated state law, as matters stand the deal stands as jeopardy -- Mr. Anderson in his 17th Floor office cannot be retried.

Only an investigation of the deal could change the result. That would likely require a New York State Bar Association effort and/or a letter to the U.S. Attorney requesting an enquiry. Rare, indeed.



(The 70-foot red Joie de Vivre statue in Zuccotti Park. 115 Broadway office building to the right with two maroon awnings for the Men's Wearhouse clothing store.)

So that is now the going price for justice and a 99%er's life. It is less than Black kids serve for stealing a pair of sneakers.

Go to a Rangers hockey game as a Wall Street CEO, get drunk, drive recklessly at twice the going speed limit, plow down an ordinary office worker. Render no assistance. The system takes care of you if you are Ruling Class and Wall Street.

Lawlessness for Wall Street spans everything from fraud to vehicular homicide. Murder is next. Whatever it takes to intimidate the 99%ers.

So... stand with OWS in Zuccotti Park. Do the marches. Freely assemble. But please, take one moment to think of "Nana." Florence Cioffi. Her soul is with you.

[vets74]

1. Dickens and law in New York.

Dickens had it right more than a century ago. Failure to prosecute Wall Street royalty -- a terrible social disease. Indeed, this killing and wrist-slap non-prosecution echos the carriage scene from "A Tale of Two Cities."

The complaint had sometimes made itself audible, even in that deaf city and dumb age, that, in the narrow streets without footways, the fierce patrician custom of hard driving endangered and maimed the mere vulgar in a barbarous manner. But, few cared enough for that to think of it a second time, and, in this matter, as in all others, the common wretches were left to get out of their difficulties as they could.

With a wild rattle and clatter, and an inhuman abandonment of consideration not easy to be understood in these days, the carriage dashed through streets and swept round corners, with women screaming before it, and men clutching each other and clutching children out of its way. At last, swooping at a street corner by a fountain, one of its wheels came to a sickening little jolt, and there was a loud cry from a number of voices, and the horses reared and plunged.

But for the latter inconvenience, the carriage probably would not have stopped; carriages were often known to drive on, and leave their wounded behind, and why not? But the frightened valet had got down in a hurry, and there were twenty hands at the horses' bridles.

"What has gone wrong?" said Monsieur, calmly looking out.

A tall man in a nightcap had caught up a bundle from among the feet of the horses, and had laid it on the basement of the fountain, and was down in the mud and wet, howling over it like a wild animal.

"Pardon, Monsieur the Marquis!" said a ragged and submissive man, "it is a child."

"Why does he make that abominable noise? Is it his child?"

"Excuse me, Monsieur the Marquis -- it is a pity -- yes."

The fountain was a little removed; for the street opened, where it was, into a space some ten or twelve yards square. As the tall man suddenly got up from the ground, and came running at the carriage, Monsieur the Marquis clapped his hand for an instant on his sword-hilt.

"Killed!" shrieked the man, in wild desperation, extending both arms at their length above his head, and staring at him. "Dead!"

The people closed round, and looked at Monsieur the Marquis. There was nothing revealed by the many eyes that looked at him but watchfulness and eagerness; there was no visible menacing or anger. Neither did the people say anything; after the first cry, they had been silent, and they remained so. The voice of the submissive man who had spoken, was flat and tame in its extreme submission. Monsieur the Marquis ran his eyes over them all, as if they had been mere rats come out of their holes.

He took out his purse.

"It is extraordinary to me," said he, "that you people cannot take care of yourselves and your children. One or the other of you is for ever in the way. How do I know what injury you have done my horses. See! Give him that."

He threw out a gold coin for the valet to pick up, and all the heads craned forward that all the eyes might look down at it as it fell. The tall man called out again with a most unearthly cry, "Dead!"

He was arrested by the quick arrival of another man, for whom the rest made way. On seeing him, the miserable creature fell upon his shoulder, sobbing and crying, and pointing to the fountain, where some women were stooping over the motionless bundle, and moving gently about it. They were as silent, however, as the men.

"I know all, I know all," said the last comer. "Be a brave man, my Gaspard! It is better for the poor little plaything to die so, than to live.

Dickens is not the only fiction here.

We knew that a fiction had been created in the behalf of this Top 1% when the New York Stock Exchange began to void the basic Common Law and statutory crimes related to fraud and theft.

Goldman, Sachs and other "sell-side" brokerage houses are now allowed to sell NYSE registered stocks that they do not own. Formerly these were the "naked short" sales -- totally illegal, a ticket to Sing Sing for doing it once.

This is a crime everywhere else in the world.

Yet between SEC and New York's Ruling Class and NYSE, these "naked short" stock sales are now a major tool for manipulating stock prices. Compared to this, Mr. Anderson of the 17th Floor is a piker a avoiding the criminal law.

Finally, what is Rule of Law these days ? Does the concept exist in our reality ?

They can kill us. Needs be they can walk away. They move markets by selling what they do not own. Law is but words that do not apply -- a fiction.

[dixiegrrrrl]

8. I applaud you posting that.

I can see NO difference between then and now.

[vets74]

10. The French aristocracy had codified their special status. Droit du seigneur existed...

up to Mozart's "Marriage of Figaro."

That peasant's child in Dickens possibly damaging Monsieur the Marquis's horses -- what a nasty form of rebellion.

Flo left one helluva dent in Anderson's SUV.

[Matariki]

18. Thank you for posting that.

The OP reminded me of that exactly.

[vets74]

20. Thank you.

Obviously, we knew her.

[PETRUS]

2. The rule of law,

and freedom, democracy, and equality of opportunity. Who has problems with those things? The 1%

Occupy Wall Street

[vets74]

11. View from the 17th Floor

[Scuba]

17. Justice is measured very differently for the wealthy...

<img src="" title="Hosted by imgur.com" />

[vets74]

19. Excellent examples.

We were shocked at this deal and then when the judge accepted this deal. He put on a show of berating Anderson. 100% for show.

[kag]

24. Also this one in my neck of the woods...

Eagle County hit-run deal puts heat on district attorney

<snip>
The details of the case, spread nationwide by furious bloggers and activists, are well-known to many. On July 3, a new black Mercedes driven by money manager Martin Erzinger careened off a road near Edwards and hit bicyclist Steven Milo, an anesthesiologist on a liver transplant team at Mount Sinai Hospital in New York City. Milo was knocked 60 feet down the road. Erzinger, who said he had dozed off, stopped in a ditch and then drove on, claiming he was unaware he had hit anyone.

Hurlbert's office charged Erzinger with a felony for leaving the scene of an accident but soon struck a deal allowing him to plead guilty to two misdemeanors.

That alone outraged many in the cycling community, as well as Milo, who suffered such disabling injuries that they made it difficult to work and forced him to lie flat in bed for weeks while his wife was eight months pregnant. Milo wanted to hear Erzinger admit he was guilty of a felony, even if a deal allowed for a deferred judgment that would wipe the felony away in a year or two.
<snip>

http://www.denverpost.com/news/ci_17109343

[vets74]

28. So... now we have a national precedent. No prosecutions for Financial Capitalism..

When Hurlbert tried to defend the deal to the Vail Daily newspaper — saying, "Felony convictions have some pretty serious job implications for someone in Mr. Erzinger's profession" — the public outrage compounded.

Erzinger is an executive at Morgan Stanley Smith Barney, where he manages more than $1 billion in client assets. The implication, the Internet masses surmised, was that justice is different for the rich in Hurlbert's jurisdiction.

Hurlbert denies that, saying now that he was making a stray point about Erzinger being able to pay restitution, if required, and that the comment was blown out of proportion. The decision, he says, was much more complicated. Looking at the facts, he says he believes he could have won a felony conviction, maybe even mandatory jail time. But, looking at the person, he wasn't sure that's what was best.

This time Erzinger, the driver, was not proven to be drunk. He left and has not apprehended in time for testing.

But there was only one fact that mattered: he was Financial Capitalism.

They own American prosecution.

Lock, stock and barrel.

[femrap]

3. I do hope that

the Cioffi family sued him in civil court.

Goddess, that is so sad.

May George Anderson meet his Karma soon.

[vets74]

4. Karmageddon. I do like Flo Cioffi for an OWS "poster child."

Wall Street has stolen trillions of dollars. Killed lots of people. Gotten away with it so far.

This is the only killing I know of where there was a dying body on the sidewalk next to Goldman, Sach and 5 blocks from NYSE.

[femrap]

5. 'Karmageddon'....

a great word. I hope George Anderson finds himself there soon.

[ceile]

6. That is truly awful. n/t

[vets74]

7. Yes, indeed.

[Mira]

9. Thank you for bringing this to my attention. I all but can't cry any more. K&R

[vets74]

15. Saw this, thought of you.

Not sure if it makes sense or not.

Fotolia is the distribution company, means "dreamtime" in Italian (maybe.)

[hatrack]

12. 16 Days, huh?

Gosh, he must have been so terribly . . . inconvenienced.

[vets74]

14. The argument at sentencing was whether he could serve it on weekends.

ISUnot.

[gratuitous]

13. What?! Some black kid stole a pair of sneakers?

Next up on CNN, "Is summary execution of sneaker thieves too harsh?" We'll hear from our panel of experts who weigh in with opinions ranging from "Not at all" to "Hell, No!"

[vets74]

21. Consider the examples above....

[Kaleko]

16. K & R

[The Wizard]

22. Some things are constant

White justice in black robes. In the halls of justice, the only justice is in the halls.
"The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll" is a topical song written by the American musician Bob Dylan. Recorded on October 23, 1963, the song was released on Dylan's 1964 album The Times They Are a-Changin' and gives a generally factual account of the killing of 51-year-old barmaid Hattie Carroll by the wealthy young tobacco farmer from Charles County, Maryland, William Devereux "Billy" Zantzinger (whom the song calls "William Zanzinger"), and his subsequent sentence to six months in a county jail.

The lyrics are a commentary on the racism of the 1960s. In 1963 when Hattie Carroll was killed, Charles County was still strictly segregated by race in public facilities such as restaurants, churches, theaters, doctor's offices, buses, and the county fair. The schools of Charles County were not integrated until 1967.<1>
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Lonesome_Death_of_Hattie_Carroll

[malthaussen]

25. Justice is Colorblind when the Color is Green

The imbalance is more of money/status than race, although if one has little of either, the non-whites get shafted harder. But where I live, several years ago the wife of a local celebrity (who happened not to be white), while driving drunk, managed to hang up a local homeless man on the bumper of her SUV and dragged him over 100 feet before he fell off, dead. She sped home, and she and her husband took the vehicle to New Jersey and sold it to a used car dealer. Unfortunately, this didn't work, the SUV was discovered, and the woman was brought to "justice" for her acts: she had to go to "counseling" for her alcohol problem. (She may also have gotten 30 or 60 days of community service: this was some time ago, and I'm doing this from memory)

I have never, and will never, understand why drunkenness is an excuse for anything.

-- Mal

[CanonRay]

23. All too typical of American "justice" today

One set of laws for THEM, another set for the rest of us.

[vets74]

30. Yes, indeed. This man George Anderson did not corrupt the system.

The criminal justice system in Manhattan was already a wealth-worshiping cess pool.

One can imagine that system squeezing Mr. Anderson for millions of dollars. Avoiding 3 years in prison would have been worth what ??? A million, or five million dollars ?

Or just a promise to the chain of ADAs involved that they would have a Pot o' Gold waiting for them on Wall Street when they decided to leave government employment ?

Investigating the prosecutor's office should be a top priority. Otherwise there is no way to clean up Wall Street.

[emsimon33]

26. What a terrible story. It just emphasizes what psychopaths

these Wall Street and corporate CEOs are. When I read cases such as this I pray that there is Hell.

[vets74]

29. These guys ???

Chicago Board of Trade. No shortage of arrogance there.

[occupy_wall_street]

27. TEST

Rest in peace.

[vets74]

33. Really wanna break that 1,500 page-read mark...

[vets74]

34. YEAH !!!!!

Now this one can sleep peacefully.

[Occupied1]

31. Huge presence right now. Area has been flooded with demonstrators. Significant

union presence.

Wish someone would start a post about what's happening.

http://www.livestream.com/globalrevolution

[vets74]

32. Prosecute Financial Capitalism's Criminals !

Just like anybody else.