US Justice Dept fouling the rigging in bond market

Conspiracy of Banks Rigging States Came With Crash (Update1)

West Virginia was just one stop in a nationwide conspiracy in which financial advisers to municipalities colluded with Bank of America Corp., Citigroup Inc., JPMorgan Chase & Co., Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc., Wachovia Corp. and 11 other banks.

Court records in the broadest-ever criminal investigation of public finance shed new light on how Wall Street’s biggest banks were cheating cities and towns during the same decade in which they were setting the stage for a global economic collapse.

They rigged bids on auctions for so-called guaranteed investment contracts, known as GICs, according to a Justice Department list that was filed in U.S. District Court in Manhattan on March 24 and then put under seal. Those contracts hold tens of billions of taxpayer money.

In October, CDR was charged with criminal conspiracy and fraud, along with Chief Executive Officer David Rubin, 48.

In October, CDR was charged with criminal conspiracy and fraud, along with Chief Executive Officer David Rubin, 48, vice president Evan Zarefsky and Wolmark. They pleaded not guilty.

“Mr. Rubin doesn’t think that CDR broke the law in any of these transactions,” said Laura Hoguet, his attorney in New York.

Daniel Zelenko, a lawyer for Zarefsky in New York, said he was confident his client will prevail at trial.

“The government continues to show that it simply doesn’t understand how this market operated,” Zelenko said in an e- mail

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Well, prehaps the government does. Only too well.

For more names and numbers, read the whole article.