While Thomas O’Brien, the U.S. Attorney for Central District of California, reportedly is looking into bringing criminal cases related to the U.S. mortgage meltdown on the West Coast, a U.S. Attorneys Office in New York is taking a leadership role in such cases on the East Coast. But it isn’t the U.S. Attorneys office in Manhattan we’re referring to here — rather, it is the lesser-known office in Brooklyn.
According to the Financial Times, the credit crisis has produced just two criminal indictments to date (the two Credit Suisse brokers last week and two Bear Stearns hedge fund managers in June), and both were brought by the Brooklyn office. Brooklyn also has reportedly formed a task force made up of over a a dozen government agencies, including the SEC and the FBI, to investigate potential crimes leading to the meltdown of the subprime mortgage market.
The article adds that eastern district office in Brooklyn has been building its white collar expertise since the formation of the Corporate Fraud Task Force in 2002, which included both the Brooklyn and Manhattan offices.
