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Danny Schechter - ColdType

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xii<br />

But he also prosecuted Richard Whitney.<br />

Who, you may ask, was Richard Whitney? The Whitneys<br />

arrived in North America in 1630. Richard went to Groton and<br />

Harvard, he became a broker, and then went on to become<br />

President of the New York Stock Exchange.<br />

Alas, he had losses he could not cover. He turned to embezzlement.<br />

Thomas Dewey convicted him and sent him to Sing-<br />

Sing.<br />

Dewey was also involved in the prosecution of Stephen<br />

Paine, a partner in, and son of the founder of, Paine Weber.<br />

Stephen had helped finance and facilitate the looting of six<br />

investment trusts.<br />

Rudy Giuliani, picked up where Dewey left off.<br />

Giuliani headed up the biggest racketeer trial in history,<br />

using RICO laws to go after the heads of all Five Families at<br />

once.<br />

But the prosecutions that made his reputation were against<br />

financiers.<br />

Ivan Boesky was, by title, an arbitrageur, someone who<br />

makes money on the difference in the prices of the same item<br />

in different markets. In actuality, he was more like a hedge<br />

fund operator who invested large sums of money betting on<br />

the market. In particular, on the big swings that came with<br />

mergers and takeovers. He learned, early on, that it was easy<br />

to bet wrong and if the bet was big enough, he could be ruined<br />

by it, and nearly was. Boesky decided that he would rather<br />

bet only when he was certain. That would only be profitable<br />

if his certainty came before other people became certain. The<br />

only way to do that was to cultivate individuals who could<br />

give him inside information. Which Ivan did, and by the time<br />

he was charged, he had made $200 million dollars. That was<br />

back in the eighties, when a couple of hundred million was big<br />

money.

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