By Sandy Wells KABC News
Wells Fargo Bank is looking very bad as Congressional hearings turn a huge spotlight on the giant bank’s unwanted intrusions into the accounts of millions of ordinary customers. Former LA County District Attorney Steve Cooley calls the bank’s actions a multi-state fraud.
“In order to perpetrate this massive corporate fraud there had to be crimes, such as computer intrusion – that’s a felony in California, 502c of the Penal Code, there had to something akin to forgery – electronic forgery – by setting up false accounts, and there was identity theft – another crime. So you have all these criminal acts, hundreds of thousands of them – millions and none of those perpetrators – even the low-level people – don;t seem to have been investigated or prosecuted.”
Cooley says it’s time for a federal investigation.
“Starting with the actual crimes that were committed against actual victims and then seeing if that can lead to an overall conspiracy.”
Cooley says the local settlement with Wells Fargo in Los Angeles seems to have overlooked an area of criminal misconduct.
“I’m a little disturbed, although I’m not sure about this, the settlement obtained by primarily the LA City Attorney’s Office and the Federal Consumer Protection Bureau did not involve anything akin to what we call in California unfair business practice. That carries criminal penalties. Why wasn’t Wells Fargo charged as a corporate entity with the crime of unfair business practices and be held criminally liable on that theory? Because this is clearly an unfair business practice.”
Cooley was a guest on 790 KABC’s McIntyre in the Morning Show with Doug McIntyre and Terri-Rae Elmer.
