Judge Jed Rakoff on free love, the death penalty, defending crooks and Wall Street justice - The Washington Post

Judge Jed Rakoff on free love, the death penalty, defending crooks and Wall Street justice - The Washington Post: "By David S. Hilzenrath, Published: January 20

From a courtroom in Manhattan, not far from the epicenter of the nation’s financial crisis, a longtime federal judge is becoming a hero to many and a nightmare to some for demanding greater accountability in cases of alleged Wall Street fraud.

Jed S. Rakoff is driving regulators nuts by refusing to rubber-stamp the kind of deals that have long defined Securities and Exchange Commission justice — boilerplate settlements in which companies use shareholders’ money to pay fines while they neither admit nor deny doing anything wrong. The latest example called for Citigroup to pay $285 million for alleged misconduct during the mortgage meltdown."

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