Brooklyn D.A. Leads Wall St. Prosecution

The recent mortgage market crisis has opened a Pandora's box of white-collar cases probed by the U.S. attorney’s Eastern District office.

Until the recent actions surfaced on Wall Street, both the Eastern District, located in Brooklyn, and the more highly renowned Southern District, located in Manhattan, have had low numbers of cases involving white-collar security frauds.

The emergence of the Eastern District as the prime prosecutor of Wall Street is uncharacteristic as the Southern District, over the past two years, has taken on twice the amount of white-collar cases.

Since Michael Garcia took the position of U.S. attorney for the Southern District, however, he has been focused on terrorism and other public corruption issues. Ties with the SEC have additionally fostered the Eastern District’s current standings.

The indictment charge put on former Bear Stearns managers Ralph Cioffi and Matthew Tannin are the first of many prosecutions being arraigned by the Eastern District. Brooklyn U.S. Attorney Benton Campbell is also investigating frauds involving the UBS AG, American International Group Inc, and the American Home Mortgage Corp.