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It pays to be rich, powerful and a Democrat with friends in Washington. While Anna Gristina, a Connecticut mother accused of being a New York “madam” sits in a cell on Riker’s Island, Jon Corzine, the former CEO of MF Global sits at home in his New Jersey mansion. MF Global had been a publically traded securities firm with $40 billion in assets, but with liabilities even larger, filed for bankruptcy late last year, after being accused of co-mingling customer funds with its own, a flagrant violation of securities law.

Grumbling grows on left over slow-going in Wall Street crisis investigationsBy Peter Schroeder - 04/26/12 07:30 AM ET Roughly four years after the financial crisis hit, some on the left are wondering when, or even if, the Obama administration plans to pursue criminal prosecutions of the Wall Street figures that played a major role in the meltdown. Top White House officials, including the president himself, have vowed the slow, steady work of investigations is underway, and that those who broke the law on Wall Street will ultimately be held accountable. But despite those promises, there is scant public proof of...

The information's hiding in plain sight but it’s still a nifty catch by the Standard’s Daniel Halper. You know why? Because the idea that Jon Corzine is still raising hundreds of thousands of dollars for The One is so insane and implausible, virtually no one would have thought to check. Of course that's not happening. Of course.And yet.He's in the $500,000+ club for the first quarter of this year, the most elite group there is among O's cash cows. You know what else happened during that quarter? News broke that more than a billion dollars in MF Global client funds...

Barack Obama's reelection campaign has released the most recent list of names of fundraising bundlers. On that list is Jon Corzine, the former governor of New Jersey and embattled money man, the former head of MF Global: Corzine, according to the Obama campaign, has once again helped raise more than $500,000. (He was likewise named a bundler in January, when the Obama campaign last released the names of their money men.)

Justice may be blind, but who works overtime to make it deaf, dumb, and stupid? Which would you imagine might attract more aggressive enforcement from the Justice Department: the theft of $1.2 billion from supposedly segregated customer brokerage funds, or lying about an alleged incident of whistling to attract the attention of a whale so that whale watchers could get a better peep? If you said the latter, then you appreciate the extent to which federal law enforcement priorities have run off the rails. We know for a fact that enormous sums of money legally off limits have disappeared into...

MF Global judge weighs release of insurance moneyBy Nick Brown and Aruna Viswanatha | Reuters – Mon, Apr 2, 2012 (Reuters) - An MF Global bankruptcy trustee asked a judge on Monday to release $25 million in insurance money to pay defense costs for Jon Corzine and other former MF Global officers facing civil lawsuits over the broker's October collapse. If paid out now, the money, part of $375 million in total insurance funds from multiple policies, could save the broker from facing larger claims later, Lorenzo Marinuzzi, an attorney for trustee Louis Freeh, said in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A finance executive at MF Global Holdings Ltd invoked her right against self-incrimination as lawmakers heard from officials who played critical roles in the final days of the futures brokerage, when a huge and still unexplained shortfall in customer money surfaced. Assistant Treasurer Edith O'Brien, believed to have been involved in authorizing a $175 million transfer that may have included customer funds, three days before MF Global's bankruptcy filing on October 31, declined to testify on Wednesday. "On advice of counsel I respectfully decline to answer based on my constitutional right," she told subcommittee chairman Randy Neugebauer...

Attention has returned to the bankruptcy of MF Global after a House Financial Services subcommittee hearing said it’s found evidence — courtesy of an email from assistant treasurer Edith O’Brien — that ex-CEO and former New Jersey Governor Jon Corzine personally directed the transfer of client funds in the waning days of the brokerage.

Is there a link out there for this hearing? I'm all over the C-Span website and cannot find any way to watch these worms squirm. It sure would be entertaining ...

Today's headlines that Jon Corzine gave "direct instructions" for MF Global customer money to moved to another account to cover a $175 million overdraft raises big questions about how this case is being handled. Congressional Committee's are imperfect investigative vehicles, but this time the House Financial Services Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigation has really scored. By digging out and making public an email from MF Global assistant treasurer Edith O'Brien, the Committee has done a huge public service. But surely the investigation of the disappearance of $1.6 billion deserves a more formal process than "trial by headline." Just where...

The Big story this weekend is that “a congressional committee is investigating how $1.6 billion in customer funds went missing from bankrupt brokerage MF Global said Friday that it’s found evidence that then-CEO Jon Corzine directed a senior executive to use $200 million of clients’ money.” It’s such a shame to see the former Governor getting probed like this. I thought Dems were not subject to financial and accounting laws because they created the laws for us. All Corzine needs to do is go before the judge and jury, then tell them they are stupid and he knows better. He...

<p>Jon S. Corzine gave "direct instructions" to move $200 million from an MF Global Holdings Ltd. account containing customer funds three days before the securities firm collapsed, according to an employee email reviewed by congressional investigators.</p> <p>The Oct. 28 email was disclosed in a five-page memo released Friday afternoon by a House Financial Services subcommittee. The panel is investigating what caused an estimated $1.6 billion shortfall in customer funds at MF Global, which collapsed into bankruptcy Oct. 31.</p>

Late Friday afternoon, the time when they love to release damaging news in the hope that it will get lost in the weekend spin cycle, a rehashed disclosure came out about "Knows Nothing" Jon Corzine. A memo had been located, which showed that Corzine had specifically directed that client funds be used to cover an MF Global bounced check to JP Morgan Chase. While this was a partial rehash, in light of recent findings, it adds clarity to Corzine's actions when MF hit the fan. An assistant treasurer Edith O'Brien of the MF sent the email as part of a...

Late Friday afternoon, the time when they love to release damaging news in the hope that it will get lost in the weekend spin cycle, a rehashed disclosure came out about "Knows Nothing" Jon Corzine. A memo had been located, which showed that Corzine had specifically directed that client funds be used to cover an MF Global bounced check to JP Morgan Chase. While this was a partial rehash, in light of recent findings, it adds clarity to Corzine's actions when MF hit the fan. An assistant treasurer Edith O'Brien of the MF sent the email as part of a...

MF Global CEO Jon Corzine authorized the transfer of $200 million in customer funds to cover a shortfall just before the broker-dealer collapsed last year, according to a congressional memo.

Then only thing that could top today's epic market insanity and hilarity, would be that Corzine is himself about to be Corzined. And just released from Bloomberg: •MF GLOBAL'S CORZINE ORDERED FUNDS MOVED TO JPMORGAN, MEMO SAYS •CORZINE'S `DIRECT INSTRUCTIONS' CITED BY CONGRESSIONAL PANEL •MF GLOBAL TRANSFER WAS USED TO COVER OVERDRAFT, PANEL SAYS •MF GLOBAL FINDINGS CITED IN MEMO OBTAINED BY BLOOMBERG NEWS And so we can now add perjury to felony embezzlement. Which means we now have to wait to find just which MF'er (and JPM'er) will be given a promise of untold millions if they only get...

President & Dr. Strangelove have a damage control session regarding Senator Corzine.

Surprise surprise, John Corzine, global elitist financier and flim-flam man will not be prosecuted for his role in the MF Global theft and fraud. It seems that the US Attorneys involved just can’t figure out if any crime was committed. There’s so much paper work for them to review and it’s just too hard. Never mind bringing the entire senior executive ranks before a grand jury to squeeze the truth out of them. Never mind the fact that CME Chief Terry Duffy, the head of a national exchange, testified before Congress that he was told that Corzine was aware that...

Federal law enforcement officials investigating the implosion of MF Global are concluding that sloppy bookkeeping rather than criminal activity is to blame for the firm’s demise that resulted in more than a $1 billion of customer funds that remains missing, FOX Business Network has learned. Though officials haven’t totally ruled out bringing a criminal case against MF Global executives, including former chief executive Jon Corzine, the odds are long that a criminal case will be filed, according to people with direct knowledge of the matter. The evidence that law enforcement officials have gathered so far shows that the firm’s sloppy...

Report: It Looks Like Corzine Will Likely Stay Out Of The SlammerRob Wile | February 24, 2012 (AP)Dealbreaker's Bess Levin reports (via FoxBusiness) that former MF Global CEO Jon Corzine will not face criminal charges for his role in the firm's diverting of client funds and subsequent collapse. Sources told FoxBusiness regulators were having "a very tough time" gathering evidence that would have put Corzine in the clinker.

No MF Global customer cash in JPM account: trusteeBy Nick Brown Fri Feb 17, 2012 5:11pm EST (Reuters) - The trustee managing the assets of bankrupt MF Global Holdings Ltd said none of the roughly $26 million being used to fund the futures brokerage in Chapter 11 is part of a $1.6 billion shortfall in customer accounts. **SNIP** "After an exhaustive investigation - which included the review of volumes of bank statements and an extensive population of cash transaction activity during October 2011 - the trustee does not believe that any of the cash in the JPM account ... represents...

Investigators have determined what happened to nearly all of the customer money that disappeared from MF Global around the time of its bankruptcy last Oct. 31, but have not publicly disclosed their progress, fearing that doing so might cripple efforts to recover the cash and pursue potential wrongdoing, people briefed on the investigation said.

When last heard from, former New Jersey Gov. Jon Corzine was telling a congressional committee he hadn’t the foggiest idea what happened to $1.2 billion of his Wall Street clients’ money. This, following the $6.3 billion collapse last fall of MF Global, the brokerage Corzine took over after voters ousted him from the Trenton statehouse. The firm went belly-up after Corzine decided to risk pretty much everything on European debt. But an audit couldn’t account for $1.2 billion, and suggested the firm may have illegally mixed client funds with the company’s own. The Wall Street Journal reported this week that...

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Barack Obama's re-election campaign identified its top fundraisers on Tuesday, including 61 people who each raised at least half a million dollars. Altogether, the more than 440 fundraisers collected at least $75 million to help Obama win a second term. Among them are embattled former New Jersey Gov. Jon Corzine. Obama's campaign and the Democratic National Committee late last year returned $70,000 in contributions from Corzine and his wife following questions about the collapse of MF Global, the financial firm Corzine ran. Corzine is no longer raising money for the re-election, campaign officials said. The campaign...

Nearly three months after MF Global Holdings Ltd. collapsed, officials hunting for an estimated $1.2 billion in missing customer money increasingly believe that much of it might never be recovered, according to people familiar with the investigation. As the sprawling probe that includes regulators, criminal and congressional investigators, and court-appointed trustees grinds on, the findings so far suggest that a “significant amount” of the money could have “vaporized” as a result of chaotic trading at MF Global during the week before the company’s Oct. 31 bankruptcy filing, said a person close to the investigation. Many officials now believe certain employees...

Link only - MF Global Clients May Lose in $700 Million Bankruptcy Fight

Instead of looking out for MF Global investors – and customers who are still waiting for their money – it looks like regulators and the bankruptcy trustees are busy suppressing information. Instead of full transparency, regulators and the trustees are holding onto crucial details that might tell us all who was asleep at the wheel when the broker/dealer and futures commission merchant (FCM) headed over the cliff. Bob English, an independent trader and contributing editor to the blog, Economic Policy Journal, published a post this morning that raises serious questions about the Securities and Exchange Commission’s program of regulation for broker/dealers...

Montana farmers have filed a class action suit against former New Jersey governor Jon Corzine, charging that the failed financial firm run by Corzine stole millions from their accounts to pay off its spiraling debts, and that Corzine's "single-minded obsession" with making MF Global a big player on Wall Street led to the firm's collapse. MF Global's clients included 38,000 wheat farmers, cattle ranchers and others who "hedged" their crop prices by placing millions in MF Global accounts. Those accounts were supposed to be "segregated and secure," according to the federal suit, meaning MF Global could not draw on those...

In recent testimony before a Congressional committee, MF Global’s former chief Jon Corzine as well as other MF Global executives said repeatedly the didn’t know where the failed brokerage firm’s $1.2 billion of missing client money was. In fact, MF Global executives knew exactly what happened to the money, as do the regulators who oversaw the firm’s bankruptcy. The so-called segregated customer funds were repeatedly, and legally (through re-hypothication), used as collateral for MF Global loans for 100:1 leveraged bets on European sovereign debt. Rehypothication is the 800lb gorilla (Editor’s note: make that the 2,000 lb gorilla). In 2007 I...

While nearly three months after the MF Global bankruptcy nobody still has any idea where the billion + in commingled client money has gone, nor why Corzine is still out and about walking freely, the former CEO of both Goldman, MF Global and New Jersey is rumored to be looking for office space at 40 Wall. Reports the WSJ:

It is with regret and unflinching moral certainty that I announce that Barnhardt Capital Management has ceased operations. After six years of operating as an independent introducing brokerage, and eight years of employment as a broker before that, I found myself, this morning, for the first time since I was 20 years old, watching the futures and options markets open not as a participant, but as a mere spectator.

It’s been a long while now since that frightful Halloween when MF Global filed the eighth-largest bankruptcy in the history of the United States. Too long a time if you are an MF customer and can’t get access or answers to what happen to your money. Certain individuals at MF Global breached the sacrosanctity of segregated customer accounts to cover for liquidity shortfalls induced from extremely leveraged bets gone extremely bad, reportedly made by CEO Jon Corzine and his confidants. Which brings us to a primary point in the MF Global debacle: Exactly where were Jon Corzine’s millions held while...

Even though we haven't quite found MF Global's $1.2 billion that went missing, Vanity Fair did find out he and his wife Sharon were talking about a château they were about to buy in the South of France. The preview of the February issue's Corzine exposé is up online--complete with cocktail party anecdotes from their 1 percent-sounding acquaintances. If you ask us, this haughty "Not Cap Ferrat" insult is the best (and worst) part: “It’s not in Cap Ferrat,” one person recalls Elghanayan saying, perhaps to mitigate the extravagance. “To buy any decent château is at least a couple of...

MF Global unloaded hundreds of millions of dollars' worth of securities to Goldman Sachs in the days leading up to its collapse, according to two former MF Global employees with direct knowledge of the transactions.

Investigation Into MF Global Expected to Heat UpBy BEN PROTESS December 30, 2011, 1:30 pm When customer money disappeared from MF Global over Halloween weekend, it seemed implausible the cash would remain at large come New Year’s Day. But two months later, the hunt for roughly $1.2 billion in client money continues. Some MF Global customers, including farmers and hedge funds, are still without about a third of the money in their accounts at MF Global, the brokerage firm once run by Jon S. Corzine, the former governor of New Jersey. Against this backdrop, and as 2012 gets ready to...

Feds: MF Global improperly moved customer moneyBy Azam Ahmedben Protess New York Times News Service Posted: Dec 29, 2011, 7:02 am WASHINGTON — Federal authorities investigating the demise of MF Global think that the firm began improperly moving customer money to a middleman on Oct. 27, according to people briefed on the matter. The transfers, which indicate the brokerage firm misused client funds earlier than previously believed, represent a new line of inquiry in the hunt for more than $1 billion in missing money. In MF Global's last days, the brokerage house was frantically winding down trades to shore up...

The same man who oversaw MF Global’s $1.2 billion in missing funds, Bradley I. Abelow, is also currently listed on the Environmental Protection Agency’s website as the current chairman of the EPA’s Financial Advisory Board. SNIP Mr. Abelow also served as former New Jersey Governor Jon Corzine’s chief of staff before Mr. Corzine went on to become MF Global’s CEO. Interestingly, current EPA Administrator Lisa Smith also previously served as then-Gov. Corzine’s chief of staff. Whether the Corzine connection played any role in Mr. Abelow’s appointment to the chairmanship of the EPA’s Financial Advisory Board is as yet unclear. Mr....

Please help. Goldman Sachs has notorious alumni, such as Corzine in it's history. This level of government and corporate nepotism and cronyism is ridiculous. Out of curiosity I looked up Goldman in the regulatory agencies web sites, and found that Goldman Sachs has a fully owned partnership with a company in the nation of Mauritius. I've never heard of Mauritius, and other than the usual Soros ties to the nation, don't understand this connection. I guess I'm a little ignorant, but can somebody shed some light on this investment HUB of a nation I've never heard of? http://brokercheck.finra.org/Support/ReportViewer.aspx?SearchGroup=Firm&FirmKey=361&BrokerKey=-1&IndvlBCCtgry=-1&IndvlIACtgry=-1

No wonder the stimulus didn't work. Download the RNC briefing book: "My Wall Street Guy: Barack Obama & Jon Corzine"

In an exclusive Human Events interview, the senior Republican on the Senate’s Agriculture Committee's Jobs, Rural Economic Growth and Energy Innovation subcommittee discusses his take on the MF Global bankruptcy scandal. “I have heard from several South Dakotans who were affected by the apparent fraud that occurred in the final days of MF Global before its collapse,” said Sen. John R. Thune (R-S.D.), who worked in the Small Business Administration​ under President Ronald W. Reagan. [Video of Thune's December 13 questioning Corzine is at the bottom of the article.] The firm’s Halloween bankruptcy was followed by the November 4 resignation...

President Obama is trying to put some distance between himself and the wreckage of bankrupt brokerage MF Global. But not too much distance. After returning more than $70,000 to Jon Corzine, the CEO who led MF Global into bankruptcy, the president’s re-election organizations are still hanging onto nearly $150,000 connected to the firm, The Post has learned. An Obama campaign official said no MF Global donations besides Corzine’s have been refunded. “Contributions will be reviewed on a case-by-case basis, and if the facts merit it, they will be returned,” the official told The Post. Late Friday, aides revealed that Obama...

http://www.economicnoise.com/

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Barack Obama's re-election campaign and the Democratic National Committee have returned more than $70,000 in contributions from former New Jersey Gov. Jon Corzine following the collapse of MF Global, Corzine's financial firm, officials said Friday. Obama's campaign and the DNC returned contributions of $35,800 from Corzine and his wife, Sharon Elghanayan, said Democratic officials who spoke on condition of anonymity. They were not authorized to speak publicly. Corzine was among Obama's top fundraisers, raising at least $500,000 for Obama's re-election campaign since April, according to records released by the campaign. The former Goldman Sachs chief held...

President Barack Obama and the DNC plan to return $71,600 donated by disgraced former MF Global head Jon Corzine and his wife, a source confirmed to POLITICO. The money was split between the DNC Victory Fund and the reelection effort. But Corzine was not just a donor but also a bundler, including from other MF Global employees. The source said the other donations from employees will be looked at case by case and, if the facts warrant it, returned. The news came late on the Friday before Christmas, generall

I have received a few emails asking if I was still content with my decision to shut down my brokerage. Not only am I content, but after seeing the news that broke over the weekend, I am of the considered opinion that the entire financial blogging community should formally call for a general financial market strike. And I’m not kidding. A couple of things have happened regarding the MF Global mess that I don’t think got the attention they should have because they broke over the weekend. So let me fill you all in. First, all notions of personal property...

I have received a few emails asking if I was still content with my decision to shut down my brokerage. Not only am I content, but after seeing the news that broke over the weekend, I am of the considered opinion that the entire financial blogging community should formally call for a general financial market strike. And I’m not kidding. A couple of things have happened regarding the MF Global mess that I don’t think got the attention they should have because they broke over the weekend. So let me fill you all in. First, all notions of personal property...

E-Mail Clues in Tracking MF Global Client FundsBy BEN PROTESS and AZAM AHMED December 20, 2011, 9:00 pm Federal authorities investigating the collapse of MF Global have uncovered e-mails that detail the transfers of money in the firm’s last days, including transfers that contained customer money, according to people close to the investigation. One e-mail chain refers to the transfer of roughly $200 million that MF Global owed JPMorgan Chase on Oct. 28 — the firm’s last business day before it filed for bankruptcy. In that chain, a senior official in the firm’s Chicago office was told to make the...

Investors are furious that they can't get back the gold and silver they stashed with the failed brokerage. It's one thing for $1.2 billion to vanish into thin air through a series of complex trades, the well-publicized phenomenon at bankrupt MF Global. It's something else for a bar of silver stashed in a vault to instantly shrink in size by more than 25%. That, in essence, is what's happening to investors whose bars of silver and gold were held through accounts with MF Global. The trustee overseeing the liquidation of the failed brokerage has proposed dumping all remaining customer assets—gold,...

Thank you. It is good to see you. Hello, New Jersey! (Applause.) All right, everybody have a seat. Everybody have a seat. I want to begin by just making a few acknowledgements. First of all, I'm going to have a lot to say about this guy, but I just want everybody to know that one of my earliest supporters, somebody who had faith and confidence in me before I was a United States senator was the man standing next to me right here -- Jon Corzine. (Applause.)

Liquidation Of Customer Stored Gold And Silver Bullion From MF Global Commodities / Gold and Silver 2011 Dec 17, 2011 - 12:27 PM By: Jesse The bottom line is that apparently some warehouses and bullion dealers are not a safe place to store your gold and silver, even if you hold a specific warehouse receipt. In an oligarchy, private ownership is merely a concept, subject to interpretation and confiscation. Although the details and the individual perpetrators are yet to be disclosed, what is now painfully clear is that the CFTC and CME regulated futures system is defaulting on its obligations....