Mark Matheny
Editor's Note: Now that the Justice Department has done the "dog and pony show" the AIG "bangsters" get to walk away free, and we get to fit the bill!
NEW YORK--The U.S. Justice Department has dropped a probe of American International Group Inc (AIG) executives involving the credit default swaps that sent the insurer to the brink of bankruptcy and forced a huge taxpayer bailout, lawyers for the executives said Saturday.
The investigation had centered on AIG Financial Products, which nearly brought down the giant insurer after writing tens of billions of dollars on insurance-like contracts on complex securities backed by mortgages that turned out to be toxic.
The U.S. government stepped in with a $182 billion bailout to avert a bankruptcy filing by AIG.
The criminal probe had focused on whether Joseph Cassano, who ran the financial products unit, and Andrew Forster, his deputy, knowingly misled investors about the company's accounting losses on its credit default swaps portfolio.
"Although a 2-year, intense investigation is tough for anyone, the results are wholly appropriate in light of our client's factual innocence," F. Joseph Warin and Jim Walden, Cassano's lawyers, said in a statement.
Forster's lawyers also confirmed the probe had been dropped.
"We were very pleased but not surprised to hear from the DOJ late yesterday that they were dropping the criminal investigation of our client," David Brodsky, one of Forster's lawyers, said in a statement. "In the end, the facts were stronger than the emotions surrounding AIG's problems."
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