In our fury over the bonuses at AIG, we should not forget the PIGs there who pocketed millions while endangering the global economy.


One at the top of the list is 54-year-old Joseph Cassano, a Brooklyn cop's kid made good who went oh so bad.



As head of the Financial Products unit, Cassano racked up billions of losses while assuring investors it was nearly impossible for his unit to lose.
"It is hard for us, without being flippant, to even see a scenario within any kind of [rhyme] or reason that would see us losing one dollar in any of those transactions," he told investors.



Before he was finally fired last March, Cassano pocketed $280 million in cash and an additional $34 million in bonuses.



Under a "retirement" agreement marked "confidential," Cassano also got a $1 million-a-month "consulting fee."................




Joseph Cassano started out at Drexel Burnham Lambert under Michael Milken, "the Junk Bond King." Drexel imploded in 1990 and Milken landed in prison.



AIG promptly hired a team of Drexel people to start a Financial Products unit, Cassano among them. Cassano became the head and began dealing in securities known as "credit default swaps" out of one office in Wilton, Conn., and another in England, dubbed "the London casino."............................




Company auditor Joseph St. Denis became concerned about the Financial Products unit, but Cassano barred him from checking.



St. Denis later quoted Cassano as saying, "I have deliberately excluded you ... because I was concerned that you would pollute the process."

New York Daily News
March 17th 2009






According to a "brokercheck report" put out by the financial regulatory agency FINRA, the Justice Department in 2004 criminally charged Cassano's unit with helping another firm, PNC Financial Services, to conceal certain assets from its books. In the end, AIG came to a settlement with DOJ and SEC, in which it paid a fine -- $80 million. Had the SEC come down harder on Cassano and AIGFP, it's conceivable that the agency could have helped stop the practices that would ultimately destroy AIG and that contributed to the current financial crisis.

Wall Street Journal
March 18th, 2009












In Securities and Exchange Commission filings, AIG acknowledges that it is under federal scrutiny for possible fraud, and notes that it is cooperating with the government's probe.

Investigators are looking at statements from company leaders, who sometimes painted a sunny picture, even in the months and weeks before financial implosion.


ABC News
March 17, 2009








Despite my position and FSD',s and AP's interest in the issue, I had no
involvement with eiforts to value AIGFP's SSCDS portfolio. This was, in my
understanding, due to the actions of Mr. Cassano to exclude me from the SSCDS valuation pro..rr. During the final week of September of 2007, the final week of my employment at AIGFP, in a meeting with Mr. Cassano, the newly hired CFO of AIGFP and the AIGFP quantitative risk expert, Mr. Cassano made the following statement to me:

"I have deliberately excluded you from the valuation of the Super Seniors because
I was concemed that you would pollute the process."

My belief is that the "pollution" Mr. Cassano was concerned about was the
transparency I brought to AIGFP's accounting policy process.


Statement by Joseph St. Dennis, AIG chief auditor, to the Senate Banking committee inquiry.
October 4th, 2008





AIGFP chief Joseph Cassano