PART FOUR ! Bankers Sometimes Commit Financial Crimes And Get Away With It – Now They Can Run Over People On Bicycles Too!

There is a web site called Abandon Your Car. It extols the virtues of using bicycles instead of automobiles.

Now, if you have the sad tale of the doctor on the bicycle being run over by the banker with the 2010 Mercedes, you may be outraged.

Trust me, you are not as mad as these guys!

From the web site –

Q: when is felony hit-and-run only a misdemeanor?
A: when a wealthy perp commits the crime in Vail
without a doubt, one of the most disturbing, and indeed digusting, miscarriages of justice in my recent memory is being played out a few short kilometers away in Eagle county, Colorado.
it seems that if you are sufficiently wealthy, you can escape felony hit-and-run charges after leaving a cyclist for dead and driving away from the scene of the accident- simple as that, and Eagle county prosecutor Mark Hulbert will be there to get your back.

This is the first paragraph. Now we’re going to work up some steam!

and again, i would like to point out that it doesn’t matter one bit if the motorist has hit a cyclist, pedestrian, skateboarder, homeless guy or any other person or pet out on the public roadways.
if the motorist leaves the scene, is drunk, drugged, impaired by cell phone usage or texting, or anything else for that matter, they should face the harshest possible penalties for their cowardly actions… no exemptions for wealth, social status, etc. will be considered.

being counted amongst the fabulously wealthy “1/2 of the top 1 percenters” does not buy a get “out of jail free card” from the consequences of committing a crime, no matter how rich and powerful the perpetrator is.

Eagle county D.A. Mark Hurlburt should be dis-barred. his actions are questionable and unethical, to name a few. to this outside observer, the whole thing reeks of a pay-off. i honestly hope that isn’t the case, but what is a person to think, given the shennannigans at the D.A.’s office surrounding this case?

This is anger.

The post concludes with (get this) Martin Erzinger’s email address, martin.j.erzinger@morganstanleypwm.com. That’s right. The accused perp is vulnerable to personal e-mailing.

In conclusion, the significant undoubted popular but not extremely popular web site, Abandon Your Car, is now very, very popular. This is what they have to say about this change –

before i get all fat headed about my newfound celebrity status and find myself with a real bad case of “Vail sunburn” (as they now call it down there in texas where this poor, traumatized skier is from) i would like to take a moment to welcome all of the thousands of new readers from around the world to ABANDON YOUR CAR, and shout out a hearty “ALLEZ! ALLEZ!” to our new followers as well.

whatever the heck “ALLEZ! ALLEZ!” is supposed to mean.

I give a hearty well done to the writers at Abandon Your Car.

PART THREE – Bankers Sometimes Commit Financial Crimes And Get Away With It – Now They Can Run Over People On Bicycles Too!

Would you like to sign the online petition asking the DA to change his mind about reducing the charges from a felony to a misdemeanor?

This is how the web site with the petition characterizes the current situation. -

On July 3, Steven Milo was riding his bicycle when he was allegedly struck from behind by wealth manager Martin Joel Erzinger. Rather than stop and call 911, or otherwise seek help for Dr. Milo, Erzinger fled the scene and called the Mercedes auto assistance service for help with his broken side mirror.

Now, Eagle County DA Mark Hurlbert is willing to drop felony charges against Erzinger, because he’s worried that Erzinger may be unable to keep his job, where he is dedicated to “ultra high net worth individuals, their families and foundations.”

Here’s how the petition reads.

Dear Mr. Hurlbert;

Traffic laws exist to motivate all drivers to act in a manner that is safe for other users of the road, including pedestrians, cyclists, and other drivers. To those of us who rely on bicycles for transportation and recreation, enforcement of laws that ensure our safety on the road is vital.

The enforcement of traffic laws should not differ depending on a driver’s ability to write a check, but rather on the ability of the law to motivate drivers to drive safely. What Martin Joel Erzinger is accused of doing is clearly criminal, but dropping felony charges will set a message to drivers that the penalties for neglecting the welfare of others on the road, causing life-altering injury, and showing no concern for the victim might not be as serious as the law indicates.

While Martin Joel Erzinger would like to write a few checks and move on with his life, we must ensure that actions such as his are punished to the full extent of the law. Please do not drop felony against Martin Joel Erzinger.

 

Currently there are 1056 signatures.

James Pilant

PART TWO – Bankers Sometimes Commit Financial Crimes And Get Away With It – Now They Can Run Over People On Bicycles Too!

My previous post, “Bankers Sometimes Commit Financial Crimes And Get Away With It – Now They Can Run Over People On Bicycles Too!,” received a lot of attention. I’ve found out some more neat stuff.

First, for those of you new to the story, a brief summary – Martin Joel Erzinger, who manages more than $1 billion in assets for Morgan Stanley in Denver, is being accused only of a misdemeanor for allegedly driving his Mercedes into a cyclist and then fleeing the scene, Colorado’s Vail Daily reports. The victim, Dr. Steven Milo, whom Erzinger allegedly hit in July, suffered spinal cord injuries, bleeding from his brain and, according to his lawyer Harold Haddon, “lifetime pain.”

Now, that is about how much I could find out yesterday. Take a look at this -

From the Vail Daily -

Milo was bicycling eastbound on Highway 6 just east of Miller Ranch Road, when Erzinger allegedly hit him with the black 2010 Mercedes Benz sedan he was driving. Erzinger fled the scene and was arrested later, police say.

Erzinger allegedly veered onto the side of the road and hit Milo from behind. Milo was thrown to the pavement, while Erzinger struck a culvert and kept driving, according to court documents.

Erzinger drove all the way through Avon, the town’s roundabouts, under I-70 and stopped in the Pizza Hut parking lot where he called the Mercedes auto assistance service to report damage to his vehicle, and asked that his car be towed, records show. He did not ask for law enforcement assistance, according to court records.

Erzinger told police he was unaware he had hit Milo, court documents say.

When Avon police arrived he was putting a broken side mirror and a bumper in his trunk, court record say.

You can always recognize a solid citizen by the way he takes care of his automobile particularly a new one. If you don’t report an accident, your insurance company won’t cover it. So obviously, that was a priority matter. He had to call. Cyclists are a dime a dozen. They are all over the place. But 2010 Mercedes Benz, now those are rare enough to get concerned, you know, German engineering and all that. That’s important!

Now, let’s read some more -

Court records say prosecutors expressed skepticism to Milo at a suggestion by Erzinger’s defense attorneys that Erzinger might have unknowingly suffered from sleep apnea, and that might have made him caused him to fall asleep at the wheel and hit Milo.

The original complaint included a felony count against Erzinger for causing serious bodily injury. Deputy DA Mark Brostrom is prosecuting the case and Milo says in court documents that Brostrom called Erzinger’s July 3 actions “egregious.” Prosecutors pleaded the case down to a misdemeanor later in the summer, then in August told Milo and his attorneys that Erzinger would face a felony charge, Haddon wrote.

But on Sept. 7, Brostrom told County Court Judge Katharine Sullivan that the case would be pleaded as a misdemeanor. That’s the first time Milo or his attorneys had heard of it, Haddon wrote, and they protested “in the strongest possible terms,” Haddon wrote.

See, he’s innocent. It was sleep apnea.

I read the wikipedia article on sleep apnea. That particular kind of incident is, well, rare. But just look at me! Such a doubter. Such a cynic. I’m really trying to reform and realize the good in people, even when they evade all actual justice.

This is a newer article on the situation.

District Attorney Mark Hurlbert is taking some heat for his decision to charge hit-and-run suspect Martin Erzinger with two misdemeanors rather than a felony.

Hurlbert has received over 1,000 e-mails since news broke last week that he offered the plea bargain to Erzinger for hitting bicyclist Dr. Steven Milo in Edwards.

There’s also an online petition with more than 6,000 signatures being circulated to tell Hurlbert to keep the felony charge against Erzinger, and the case is receiving national media attention from shows like CBS’s “Inside Edition.”

Goodness, people complaining to a public official. What will the world come to next? Here’s some more -

Milo and his attorney, Harold Haddon, had asked that Erzinger plead to a felony with a deferred judgment, Hurlbert said.

With that, Erzinger would plead guilty to a felony, and as long as he met the conditions it would drop off his record in two to four years.

“They felt this was the best way for Mr. Erzinger to acknowledge the crime,” Hurlbert said.

Hurlbert disagrees, pointing out that Erzinger was not found to be using alcohol or drugs at the time of the accident, and that he has no criminal record.

See, he hit him without being impaired. That’s all the difference in the world. You have much better aim without drugs or alcohol.

Now, I don’t want you to get upset and add to the thousand or so complaining e-mails, the District Attorney has received. That would require you to go the Eagle County, Colorado District Attorney web site.

I wouldn’t ask you to do that. I definitely wouldn’t suggest you do that.

But should you disregard my advice, be careful, the city attorney is also listed and he’s okay as far as I can tell.

James Pilant

Fed Regulators Ride To The Rescue?

Three years ago, the states began to get concerned about mortgage fraud. So they asked the banks about it.

From the Washington Post -

As foreclosures began to mount across the country three years ago, a group of state bank regulators suspected that some borrowers might be losing their homes unnecessarily. So the state officials asked the biggest national banks for details about their foreclosure operations.

Guess what! Some banks didn’t cooperate.

When two banks – J.P. Morgan Chase and Wells Fargo – declined to cooperate, the state officials asked the banks’ federal regulator for help, according to a letter they sent. But the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, which oversees national banks, denied the states’ request, saying the firms should answer only to inquiries from federal officials. In a response to state officials, John Dugan, comptroller at the time, wrote that his agency was already planning to collect foreclosure information and that any additional monitoring risked “confusing matters.”

You see it’s a “federal” matter. If the states stepped in, it would “confuse matters.”

From further down in the article -

But even as it closed the door on state oversight, the OCC chose itself not to scrutinize the foreclosure operations of the largest national banks, forgoing any examination of their procedures and paperwork. Instead, the agency relied on the banks’ in-house assessments. These provided no hint of the problems to come until they had tripped the nation’s housing market, agency officials later acknowledged.

Basically, the foolish states get in the way when they investigate things, you know, “confusing matters.” This is especially true when you, the feds, are not under any circumstances whatever going to investigate the banks yourselves.

From further down in the article -

“Based on what we were seeing and what we were concerned about, it felt like a chronic underreaction at the federal level,” said John Ryan, a senior official with the Conference of State Bank Supervisors.

What John Ryan means is, “We could have cracked this case, but you made sure we couldn’t by using federal preemption to keep us out. Why don’t you explain that?”

I want to hear that too.

Further in the article -

Even when the mortgage industry itself identified possible flaws in foreclosure paperwork, the agency was slow to act. In September, Ally Financial suspended foreclosures after discovering problems with tens of thousands of cases. But even then, the OCC did not begin to examine the operations of other major banks. Instead, the agency asked them to undertake internal reviews and told them it would conduct its own examination later, an OCC official said.

So, after waiting three years and only after the mortgage industry admits problems, do the feds leap into action. Our valiant defenders armed with certain knowledge that something is wrong put the full weight of the federal government on the problem.

They ask the banks to do internal reviews.

Two weeks ago, for the first time, the OCC began sending its staff into the banks to examine their foreclosure operations, interview bank employees and review paperwork.

Three years. What’s the big deal? A few (well, we don’t actually have any concept of how many) actual citizens thrown from the homes that the banks didn’t own. Giant financial institutions are held in no way accountable because the federal government refused to act and made sure the states could not. What’s the big deal?

Tell me, which is worse? 1) Breaking the law or 2) Refusing to enforce the law.

Tell me, are any bankers going to jail, any homeowners going to get their houses back or is anybody at any of these helping services, whoops, I mean regulatory agencies, going to get fired, at least reprimanded?

None of these things are going to happen.

Don’t be mistaken, this no low level official making the call. This is the direct policy of the Obama Presidency.

Nothing else is possible.

Let’s ask the questions. Sit in the chair with our esteemed President. Three years ago, the states begin suspect widespread fraud in the foreclosure industry. They tell the feds.

What do you do? Well, you’d probably say, “We’d better ask some questions. Show us what you got. We’ll follow up.” Isn’t that about right.

Okay, what did happen. The feds used preemption to stop the state investigations and then conducted no investigations of their own.

Three years later, the banks admit that there are serious problems. Let’s sit you in the President’s chair again. The banks have admitted that they have used fraudulent affidavits in hundreds of thousands of cases and that their paper trail of ownership may have problems. I bet you would want to get some people down there to find out what’s going in. I suspect you would probably consider a criminal investigation.

What happened? The feds asked the banks to do an internal review.

Next, the fifty states attorney generals launch a joint investigative action against the mortgage companies. The media, national and international, are jam packed with stories of scandalous repossessions, like foreclosing on paid for homes.

Now after patiently waiting until two weeks ago, the President and you have the same opinion. “We’re going to investigate.”

That’s how you make decisions, isn’t it?

James Pilant