WASHINGTON (Sputnik) — The US Department of Justice needs to make fighting white collar crime a top priority by dedicating more resources to effectively investigate and prosecute cases, former Watergate prosecutor Nick Akerman told Sputnik.
On Thursday, US Deputy Attorney General Sally Quillian Yates said the Justice Department would enhance its focus on prosecuting white collar criminals by pursuing both corporate entities and individual executives.
"To combat white collar crime more generally, the Department of Justice has to increase the manpower, both prosecutors and investigatory agents," Akerman said on Friday.
Since the September 11 terrorist attacks on the United States, Akerman argued, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and other law enforcement agencies have been consumed by the threat of terrorism.
"Other priorities, including white collar crime, have taken a back seat," he added.
In the 1980s, Akerman explained, it became more profitable to charge companies because the Justice Department incorporated hefty fines into the federal Sentencing Guidelines.
"Prior to the Sentencing Guidelines there was virtually no incentive for federal prosecutors to indict corporations," he said.
The 2008 financial crisis involving mortgage-backed securities, Akerman argued, was extremely difficult to prosecute because of broad disclosures in stock prospectuses that make it clear how risky those investments were.
"These disclosures have made it impossible in many instances to prosecute individuals or companies since the gist of the crime of fraud is misleading or false statements about the viability of these vehicles as investments," he concluded.
As a result of the 2008 financial crisis, trillions of dollars in shareholder value were lost while the US federal government provided more than a trillion dollars in relief to keep other companies and banks from failing.
