Once relatively uncommon, investigations and prosecutions of white-collar crimes have become an important part of modern legal practice. But this development has sometimes stretched the criminal law to — some would say beyond —the breaking point. Again and again, it has thrown up vexingly difficult questions as to how the law should distinguish between permissible business or business-related conduct and conduct that can lead to years in jail. This course will examine a number of these thorny questions and the manner in which our legal system has grappled with them. In addition, it will consider the ultimate question for convicted white-collar defendants: should they be sent to prison, and if so for how long?
White-Collar Prosecutions: How far is too far?
Group Leader: Paul Weissman
Venue: Cathedral Church of Saint Paul
Meets on: Thursday 10 AM to noon
Starting: April 9
Sessions: 6
Class Size: 20
Teaching Style: Lecture with questions
Weekly Preparation: None
Paul Weissman is a happily retired lawyer. For about half of his legal career, he served as a federal prosecutor in New Jersey, where he focused primarily on white-collar crime. He was the lead prosecutor in many then-prominent cases, including the prosecution of the retail electronics king Eddie ("Crazy Eddie") Antar and the prosecution of senior officers of a company known as Cendant who perpetrated a $14 billion accounting fraud, the largest in history up to that time. After leaving the government, he held senior legal positions at two large pharmaceutical companies, Schering-Plough Corp. and Merck & Co.