Back in 1999, I stood up in court and objected Alan Cohen’s demands for my lawyers to turn over tapes of conversations I recorded to protect me as a journalist when I was writing about the various bank manipulations. I told Judge Richard Owen that those tapes revealed criminal activity by the major banks in market manipulations across the board, dating back to 1999, and had nothing to do with my case.
Judge Owen told my lawyers to turn over all the tapes or they would be thrown in prison and held in contempt. That action under the law was totally illegal for it was an OBSTRUCTION OF JUSTICE that would land anyone else in prison for 5 years. Instead, Goldman Sachs hired Alan Cohen, awarding him a position on the board while remaining court officer still running Princeton Economics. Cohen never resigned, despite the obvious conflict of interest. I NEVER received any support from anyone in the press for what I was defending. They understood that since the media is on their side they can get away with anything.
Now four of the banks: JPMorgan Chase, Barclays, Citigroup, and RBS have agreed to plead guilty to U.S. criminal charges with fines reaching $5.7 billion. The U.S. Attorney General, Loretta Lynch, said that “almost every day” these firms were manipulating currency rates since 2007 to clip clients on transactions all the time. How could anyone be stupid enough to trade with the major banks? They function solely on Transactional Banking and have abandoned Relationship Banking. You really have to be pretty stupid to think that you will be treated fairly.
