Why Bank Execs Avoided Jail Time In Wake Of Great Recession

In a lengthy piece, the New York Times magazine examines why, in the wake of the largest man-made economic catastrophe since the Depression, a single investment banker – who happened to be several rungs from the C-suite at a second-tier financial institution – was the only banker to see prison time. ProPublica reporter Jesse Eisinger finds that a series of court rulings that eliminated key legal tools, the shifting focus of the Justice Department after corporate prosecutorial snafus in the past decade, and a lack of federal resources left the government flat-footed when the 2008 financial crisis occurred. When DOJ did scrape together the means to go after bankers and executives responsible for cratering the economy, it became clear that the years of focus on reaching settlements, rather than seeking prison sentences, put the government’s lawyers at an experience disadvantage. “The government failed,” one former prosecutor said.  “We didn’t do what we needed to do.”