Prosecutors claim Nicolas Cosmo, 37, owner of Agape World Inc. and Agape Merchant Advance LLC, swindled at least 1,500 investors and used some of the money to pay for limousines, fund a baseball league and pay off a restitution order from an earlier fraud conviction.Here's the thing: Unlike Bernie Madoff, Cosmo didn't steal from a bunch of trust-fund types and other rich folks. Cosmo stole from middle-class and working-class people. He stole from people who may well be inclined to settle this matter with a bullet to the back of his head.
So if Cosmo knows what is good for him, he might conclude that pre-trial confinement isn't such a bad thing.
Main reason not to: one of the precedents set in the Ken Lay case is that the dough that he owns goes to his descendants when he dies, and thus becomes uncollectable as part of the civil suit against him. So if the investors want any of their money back (pennies on the dollar, granted, but still *some* money), the dude has to stay alive until they get their dough.
ReplyDelete*THEN* they can whack him :-).
- Badtux the Finance Penguin