Cuomo Sets His Sights On Ex-Merrill Lynch Execs

New York pundits have been busy speculating about Andrew Cuomo's chances for a bid to oust Paterson in next year's primaries. Yet the Attorney General is concerning himself with more pressing matters, such as corporate greed. He's been doing going after crooked Wall Streeters for a long time now and especially so in these last few months. The financial industry is rife with greedy traders, corrupt bankers and crooked, so-called government regulators. Cuomo is out to get them all, including those who were at Merrill Lynch in their waning days. In the middle of his bullseye are four executives who swiped $121 million in bonueses just before the firm was overtaken by Bank of America.

From The NY Daily News:

Attorney General Andrew Cuomo for the past month has been examining the highly suspicious timing of the last-minute Merrill handouts.

In all, Merrill doled out $3.6 billion in bonuses just days before Bank of America finalized its deal to buy the collapsing firm - with the help of $45 billion in taxpayer money.

Cuomo presented his initial findings Tuesday to Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.), whose House Financial Services Committee holds hearings Wednesday in Washington on how banks are spending bailout funds.

"One disturbing question that must be answered is whether Merrill Lynch and Bank of America timed the bonuses in such a way as to force taxpayers to pay for them through the deal funding," Cuomo wrote to Frank.

As the article notes, Cuomo is well prepared to battle these crooks, with subpoenas coming to the odious John Thain and Steele Alphin for starters. Now, what Barney Frank will do with this information is anyone's guess. Frank isn't stupid, he should have known that giving bailout money to these companies was going to be lost somehow, especially since TARP was written with practically no oversight. Perhaps this will shake Congressional leaders enough to wake them up to what is going on up in New York. One thing is for sure though, Cuomo will keep shaking them with the evidence he finds.