Big white collar developments

Thanks to the White Collar Crime Prof Blog, I see there are all sorts of interesting developments on the white collar front.  The biggest news, as detailed in this AP story, concerns a federal jury acquitting HealthSouth Corp. founder Richard Scrushy of all charges “in a surprise setback for federal prosecutors who had scored victories over a string of big-name CEOs accused of fraud.”  Peter Henning and Ellen Podgor both have extended posts here and here covering and analyzing this news. The first thought that jumped to my mind was that perhaps the Scrushy juror was influenced in some small way by the news of very long sentences in other federal white-collar cases such as the sentences the Rigases received last week.

And speaking of long sentences in white-collar cases, the White Collar Crime Prof Blog in this post discusses the government’s sentencing brief for the July 13 sentencing of former WorldCom CEO Bernie Ebbers.  That brief, which runs 83 total pages and can be accessed at this link, is a very interesting read and concludes with the government being a bit cagey about its ultimate sentence recommendation (perhaps because the claimed amount of loss takes Ebbers’ guideline calculation literally off the offense level chart).  Peter Henning provides an nice summary of the government’s brief in this post, and I will just set out the brief’s nuanced conclusion:

The Government respectfully submits that, for the reasons explained above, Ebbers should be sentenced to a term of imprisonment consistent with the Sentencing Guidelines and the sentences imposed in the three similar cases involving John Rigas, Patrick Bennett, and Steven Hoffenberg [who are other senior executives convicted of significant corporate fraud].

Some media reports on the government’s sentencing brief are here and here, and background on Ebbers’ sentencing filing seeking leniency can be found in this post.