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| -Lurid Crime Tales- |
| Frank Quattrone's Amazing Escape Act |
| 2006-08-23 |
| It's taken 3 1/2 years, but Frank Quattrone has extricated himself from both regulatory shackles and a criminal conviction that once seemed likely to end to his brilliant if controversial career in disgrace. Houdini would have been impressed. The odds were against him. ``Something on the order of 94 percent of those charged in federal court either plead or are found guilty of something,'' said Lee Altschuler, former chief of the U.S. Attorney's Office in San Jose and now a Palo Alto defense attorney. ``It's not always a function of the strength of the evidence. It's also the resources to fight back in court.'' Quattrone had the money for a high-caliber defense and the will to refuse a plea bargain. In reversing his own reversal of fortune, the former chief of technology banking for Credit Suisse First Boston succeeded where such high-profile, deep-pocket defendants as Michael Milken, Charles Keating and Martha Stewart failed. They went to prison. Quattrone, steadfastly maintaining his innocence, won his appeals and ultimately made prosecutors back off. In the ultimate analysis, legal observers say, Quattrone may have prevailed because the case against him was questionable from the start, and because regulators and prosecutors took an unreasonably hard-line approach in their quest to punish him. Frank Quattrone plays hard ball on the edge, but he didn't break the law here and this dismissal is well deserved. It is unfortuante he cannot sue fvor what was done to him, malicious prosecution. I'd bet his defence has cost him between $5 and 10 million. Few of us could afford that kind of defence against the unlimited budget of a rogue Federal prosecutor. This, like the case against Martha Stewart was nothing but a trumped up Obstruction of Justice charge. This is a bogus charge and I will never think ill of anyone just because they have been convicted of OOJ. |
| Posted by:Nimble Spemble |