Moral Black Hole
Willamette Week Reports that a big player in a massive pension fraud is back behind his desk (after collecting a $2 million bonus and $350,000/year salary while behind bars):
After what he referred to in a statement as a 14-month "leave of absence," financial wunderkind Andy Wiederhorn walked out of federal prison Tuesday in Minnesota. Four months shy of his 40th birthday, Wiederhorn will re-assume the reins of the Portland-based Fog Cutter Capital Group. Contrite after his June 2004 guilty pleas to charges of filing a false tax return and paying an illegal gratuity to a pension plan official? "I believe it was wrong for the government to prosecute me," Wiederhorn says.
An update: The Oregonian reports on October 16 that the Bureau of Prisons is stopping Wiederhorn from going back to work until his release from custody in a Northeast Portland halfway house. Meanwhile, the New York Times business section echoes the Willamette Week story.