The fact that Chen was disbarred is not the most important aspect of this legal saga. The most important part of this story is who Chen's 2001 co-defendants were: Joseph Liu and Schuman Tu.
Joseph Liu, who was also convicted of Bank Fraud, is the father of New York City Comptroller John Liu. The Comptroller is the fiscal officer of the City of New York and responsible for the health of over $120 billion in city employee pension funds.The elder Liu, along with his co-defendant Chen and Tu, was convicted of the misapplication of over one million dollars of bank funds and making false statements on Bank records after a federal jury trial in 2001. Father Liu, as a convicted corporate criminal, joined the ranks of Bernard Madoff, Marc Dreier, and Enron's Ken Lay.
However, with a mountain of cash behind them, which enabled them to retain the best corporate criminal defense attorneys, the NYC Comptroller's father, Chen and Tu, waged an appellate legal battle with the U.S. Government that would reach all the way up to the United States Supreme Court.
The argument could be made that Liu's father waged this expensive battle in order to clear the Liu name for the future NYC Mayoral race which would occur after the end of the Bloomberg era. Clearing the Liu name would ensure that Liu's son would have a better chance at becoming Mayor. Unfortunately, being the son of a corporate gangster has not prevented Joseph Liu's son from being elected comptroller and taking charge of NYC's $100 billion pension fund. Notwithstanding that two of the Comptroller's fundraisers have been federally indicted for illegally funneling money to Liu's campaign.
Liu and his co-defendant's first appeal was to the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. This federal appellate court is arguably the most important federal circuit court in the country. Its decisions influence sister federal circuit courts and state courts. More importantly, many of its unique cases are appealed to and affirmed by the United States Supreme Court. The Second Circuit is also one of the most expensive courts to re-argue cases before since it is located in the heart of lower Manhattan. Furthermore, many of the attorneys that argue cases before the Second Circuit are some of the highest paid attorneys in the world. In 2003, the lawyers for father Liu argued before this appellate court that the jury instructions by his trial judge on the intent necessary to support a conviction for the misapplication of bank funds was unconstitutional. Liu and Chen also claimed that the introduction of co-defendant Tu's statements during trial violated their right to confront witnesses against them. They also challenged the sufficiency of the evidence and Tu argued that the trial court failed to instruct the jury in accordance with his theory of the defense.
The Second Circuit appellate court rejected all of Liu's arguments and affirmed all of the convictions. These exotic defenses were expensive, and, unfortunately, unavailable to the vast majority of criminal defendants in this country, who, unlike these corporate criminals, happen to be poor. History demonstrates that the United States legal justice system favors the wealthy.
In 1987, a shocking European documentary entitled 14 Days in May was produced and showed just how the poor in this country can become a victim of the legal system. 14 Days recorded the last two weeks of a defendant before he was executed after he was convicted of the attempted rape of a woman and the killing of a police officer in Mississippi. The defendant died in the gas chamber even as his lawyer scrambled for last minute appeals. It was later determined that subsequent exculpatory evidence was known to exist by police officers prior to his trial.
During the defendant's last 14 days on earth he was visited by the women in his family for the final time. The movie has a late eighties Roger and Me documentary feel. However, in this visitation scene, these indomitable, beautiful, strong young women sang in gospel style chorus, the 1987 hit "Always" by the R & B band Atlantic Starr. This clip of reality strikes to the core as this dehumanizing Mississippi prison of steel bars and concrete could not destroy the love and bravery of these women. If only this defendant had the same economic resources as Mr. Liu, he might still be alive.
As Barack Obama was elected on a platform of diversity as the first black president, John Liu exploited the fact that he was the first Asian American elected to the NYC Council and the first Asian American elected to a NYC-wide office. The argument can be made that, as Obama escalates the war in Afghanistan, that he is just George Bush with a different face. Similarly, John Liu is the modern day corrupt Tammany Hall politician for the latest wave of immigrants to NYC.
Just as corporate America used the ethnic diversity of the sports and entertainment world to sell soda and clothing, corporate lobbyists are using ethnic diversity to sell candidates that will get elected, but then serve their financial agenda. Many liberal movie directors have reflected in their work that there are good and bad people of all ethnic backgrounds. In Paul Verhoven's 1987 movie Robocop, the director demonstrated a multi-ethnic murderous gang that was wrecking havoc on the streets of Detroit. Today in NYC, we also have a multi-ethnic set of elected officials, like Liu, Mayor Bloomberg, and Speaker Christine Quinn that have joined forces and have declared war on the middle class.
Any wise police officer with patrol experience in a multi-ethnic city, will attest that there are good and bad people in all ethnic communities. No one ethnic background has a monopoly on crime. Ethnicity in not an indication of one's character. This salient point was explained in Spike Lee's recent 2012 movie Red Hook Summer. The movie, set in present day gentrified Brooklyn, shows the alienating affects of the iPad and the agony of a jobless, depressing economy. During the climax of the film, one of the main characters explains that African-Americans thought that all of their problems would disappear once Obama was elected. In short, although Obama is black, he did nothing to help African-Americans or any other working class people upon being elected.
David Cronenberg's 2012 movie Cosmopolis, like Red Hook Summer, takes on the insanity of the global economic state minus the element of ethnicity. The movie centers around a young billionaire who slowly travels through Manhattan in a modern, computer-equipped chauffeured driven limousine. As the titan receives his up-to-the-minute stock market info on his limo's computer, he can view the occupy wall street protesters rioting in the street outside his vehicle. There is one disturbing scene where, on live television, the director of the International Monetary Fund is stabbed while being interviewed on a talk show. This televised assignation, reminiscent of the Jack Ruby shooting of Lee Harvey Oswald was the invasion of reality within the unreality of choreographed television.
As the above cited movies explore the issues of wealth inequality, the bi-product of wealth stratification becomes more apparent: the more money you have, the more political power you have.
Since Wall Street has destroyed the global economy with sub-prime mortgages and credit default swaps, the media has declared war on public employee pensions. Once again the corporate media has divide the working class by labeling police, firefighter, and teacher pensions as "too generous." The media has been successful in trying to paint the public employee pensions as the economic problem burdening the nation's economy. Prior to the economic downturn, President Bush expressed his desire to see the Social Security system placed in the stock market. If Bush had his way, the Social Security pension system would have been placed in the hands of corporate criminals like Madoff and Lay. On the NYC level, the entire public pension system has been placed in the hands of the son of a corprate criminal.
During the summer of 2005, as the Mayoral election approached, the co-defendants of the
Comptroller's father would appeal their cases to the United States Supreme Court:
In the Fall of 2005, according to the above court records, the U.S. Supreme Court refused to hear the appeals of Robert Chen and Schuman Tu, thereby foreclosing Jospeh Liu's chances of having his conviction overturned before the NYC Comptroller's next electoral bid. The shock is that there is no shock that the NYC Comptroller's father is a convicted corporate criminal, since John Liu has won three elections since his father, with the electorate's knowledge, was tried and convicted of bank fraud.
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