a jury convicted Foley and a co-defendant at the urging of Deputy District Attorney Charles Slone

I've been registered as a futures broker on and off for more than a year.  I am not posting to solicit business.  Instead, as a futures broker, I at times read the cftc (commodity futures trading commission) or NFA (National Futures association) complaints against persons or groups who have violated US laws or NFA "ethics" regulations.  

In fact, for entertainment, I sent a bunch of clients today a collection of stories of such.

Anyway, what is amazing is that although the monetary penalties for fraud in this business can be severe, there are never or almost never criminal penalties.  At least, I've never read of any and I've read dozens of cases and their outcomes.  I don't know why that is and I have half a mind to write to Pelosi.

I or anyone can read government complaints that go like this:

Broker A of company XYZ repeatedly lied to potential and actual clients about the trading profits of
A) some idiot untested trading strategy based on the conjunction of planets
B) sunspots
C) heating oil in months leading up to November
D) himself in general
E) all of his other clients or those at brokerage XYZ;  
F) anyone who took his advice
and Broker A repeatedly minimized the risks involved in futures trading . . .
and Broker A repeatedly told potential clients that he would not let the options they purchased go down in value . . .
and Broker A told various clients that sugar looked poised for a dramatic rally such as had not been seen for the last 20 years . . .
and Broker A told various potential clients that they needed to get into the market as soon as possible, because every day they were not in the market, the market was moving higher and higher . . .

The government will document the lies and omissions, and then they'll settle the case for a fine (and, just maybe, a restitution plan) and the guy no longer being a futures broker!

I just read one case in which the government ordered a few men (brokers or the principals of a firm) to pay restitution of $150 million to defrauded speculators.  And I am not talking about a case in which it just so happened that the brokers and speculators choose a bad plan, but one in which the brokers lied repeatedly in order to induce opening accounts and the speculative trading.

Well, wouldn't $150 million normally count for at least four counts of Grand Theft Auto?  I could be wrong, but I think "they" consider several counts of GTA to be felonies.  OK, why isn't defrauding persons out of $150 million some kind of embezzlement?  And, as for "child pornography," (which has in dozens of states since 1982 morphed into including nonsexual nudes of minors, topless teens or teens in lingerie) of course, the feds have mandatory minimums--or used to--of 10 years or so, and states like Washington also put you away for years.