No criminal charges
- Last Updated: 12:06 AM, July 8, 2013
- Posted: 11:09 PM, July 7, 2013
EXCLUSIVE
It’s official.
Jon Corzine will not be cuffed over MF Global’s improper handling of customers’ funds leading up to the commodity brokerage firm’s spectacular collapse in late 2011, The Post has learned.
Federal investigators have found no evidence that the disgraced Wall Street titan broke the law.
“After 18 months of investigation, the criminal probe into Jon Corzine is now being dropped,” a person with knowledge of the probe told The Post.
“There is no evidence of criminal wrongdoing,” this person said.
The Justice Department’s decision to drop the case is sure to come as a relief to Corzine, who has been widely blamed for MFG’s bankruptcy — as well as the misuse of some $1.6 billion in customers’ funds.
Last week, Corzine was hit with civil charges by the Commodities Futures Trading Commission in connection with the illegal tapping of the funds, which were improperly co-mingled with the MFG’s house money in the firm’s final days.
The regulator also charged Edith O’Brien, MFG’s former assistant treasurer, for carrying out the illegal transfers in a desperate bid to keep the troubled company afloat.
Both Corzine and O’Brien have denied the allegations.
Criminal investigators, including federal prosecutors and the FBI, have been probing the breach since shortly after it was uncovered with its Halloween 2011 bankruptcy.
At the time it was the eighth largest bankruptcy in US history — and the largest since Lehman Brothers went under in September 2008.
Investigators last interviewed Corzine, who has denied authorizing the transfers, in September 2012, sources said.
The criminal probe then appeared to run out of steam until a few months ago when O’Brien was granted immunity and agreed to cooperate.
Unfortunately for mad-as-hell MFG customers, many of whom are still owed money, the talks with O’Brien failed to convince the feds of any Corzine guilt.
Representatives for Manhattan US Attorney Preet Bharara’s office and the FBI declined to comment, as did a spokesman for Corzine.
The CFTC lawsuit relied on recorded telephone conversations to support their allegation that Corzine was fully aware of the transfers.
In one call, an employee told Corzine that some of the funds O’Brien transferred had not been returned, the lawsuit said. Corzine asked if O’Brien had received back “enough to be in compliance.” The employee replied, “No.”
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