SEC Employees Watched Porn as Economy Crashed

So this is why they missed Madoff (…and Stanford and Enron and and Rothstein and WorldCom and…well, you get the point):

An agency watchdog says senior employees of the Securities and Exchange Commission spent hours surfing pornographic websites on government-issued computers while they were being paid to police the financial system.
SEC Inspector General David Kotz says in a memo obtained by The Associated Press that the behavior violates agency and government-wide ethics rules.
The memo reports 33 violations in the past five years — 31 of which took place in the two and a half years since the financial system teetered and nearly crashed.
It says one supervisory accountant looked at pornographic websites about twice a day and saved images on his SEC computer to view during work hours.

I hope everyone got their taxes in on time!
In other news: “Firm used debt proceeds for strippers, payroll”

The Securities and Exchange Commission filed an emergency enforcement action on Tuesday to halt an alleged fraudulent scheme by two owners of an Albany, New York, brokerage who sold debt in unregistered offerings and used the proceeds for its operations and to hire strippers.
Chairman Timothy McGinn and President David Smith, owners of McGinn, Smith & Co Inc, sold about $120 million in more than 25 unregistered debt offerings, according to a complaint filed in a New York federal court.
The proceeds, not enough to repay investors their principal or interest payments, went to supporting the firm’s struggling operations and to meet payroll, the SEC said.
They also used funds to hire strippers for a “sexually themed cruise” and other personal activities.
“McGinn and Smith deceived investors about the true purpose behind these offerings,” said Andrew Calamari, associate director of the SEC’s New York regional office. “They falsely promised investors a profitable payday but secretly siphoned off money for their own payroll.”

Posted by Eddy Elfenbein on April 22nd, 2010 at 8:54 pm

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