DA Who Dropped Fraud Case Against Trump Kids Did Opposite With Immigrant Family

[Note:  This item comes from friend David Rosenthal.  DLH]

DA Who Dropped Fraud Case Against Trump Kids Did Opposite With Immigrant Family
Manhattan DA Cy Vance, in the news this week, was the prosecutor who pushed the ill-fated Abacus prosecution
By Matt Taibbi
Oct 5 2017
https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/features/taibbi-on-da-who-dropped-fraud-case-against-ivanka-and-don-jr-w507338

A big story hit the news this week after a joint investigation by ProPublica, WNYC and The New Yorker. Reporters Andrea Bernstein, Jesse Eisenger, Justin Elliott and Ilya Marritz discovered that Manhattan District Attorney Cy Vance dropped a potential felony fraud case against Ivanka and Donald Trump Jr., before a campaign contribution made to Vance.

It was a real estate fraud case involving Trump SoHo, a hotel and condo project. Investigators believed the Trumps had made falsely reassuring statements to prospective buyers of units in the complex, where sales had been tepid.

The reporters learned that the evidence included email chains in which the Trumps “discussed how to coördinate false information.” In another set of communications, they apparently reassured a broker who was concerned about the deception.

When the investigation got hot in May of 2012, Trump personal lawyer Marc Kasowitz went to meet with Vance. Three months later, the case went away. Kasowitz reportedly later bragged about his work, saying it was “amazing I got them off.” (The lawyer now denies making that statement). Subsequently, Kasowitz made an additional contribution to Vance of $32,000, and reportedly helped route additional contributions to the DA. 

At almost exactly the same time he was meeting with Trump’s lawyer, Cy Vance was pushing another case through the Manhattan courts. On May 31st, 2012, just two weeks after his meeting with Kasowitz, Vance’s office moved to indict for mortgage fraud a tiny Chinese immigrant bank called Abacus Federal Savings, along with 19 of its employees.

For the arraignment in the case, the 19 individual defendants were frog-marched into court in a literal chain gang – you can see the now infamous photo in a contemporary New York Times piece – in a scene that was clearly designed to show Vance’s office was throwing the book at white-collar offenders. Some of the people in the chain gang made as little as $35,000 a year.

Though the case had absolutely nothing to do with the 2008 financial crisis – more on that in a moment – Vance shamelessly pitched Abacus as a prosecution directed at the causes of the crash.

“If we’ve learned anything from the recent mortgage crisis,” he said, “it’s that at some point, these schemes will unravel and taxpayers could be left holding the bag.” 

Abacus was a small family-owned bank, a mainstay of the Chinatown neighborhood, that had self-reported the discrepancy that led to the prosecution. In exact contrast to the broader financial crisis dynamic, it made home loans to people who made their payments. The alleged victim, Fannie Mae, did not experience a penny of loss. Abacus was ultimately found not guilty, in a major embarrassment to Vance’s office.

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