Saturday, April 7, 2012

There Are Ways to Take on The Man and Ways Not To

A former commodities trader was sentenced to 28 months in prison on Friday for threatening to kill dozens financial regulators.

Vincent McCrudden, 51, was accused in January 2011 of posting an online "execution list" of officials, including Securities and Exchange Commission Chairman Mary Schapiro and Commodity Futures Trading Commission Chairman Gary Gensler.

McCrudden was employed on Wall Street for more than 20 years, working his way up from a New York Mercantile Exchange floor broker to running trading desks specializing in commodities, derivatives and foreign exchange, according to his biography on the website of his firm, Alnbri Management LLC, reports Reuters.

Federal prosecutors said he began a five-year campaign of threats and harassment after becoming "enraged" in 2005 after the National Futures Association denied his application to trade futures on behalf of others.


"Go buy a gun, and let's get to work in taking back our country from these criminals," McCrudden allegedly wrote in a statement, "I will be the first one to lead by example."

Visits by the FBI and U.S. Marshals Service failed to stop the threats, which escalated in the later part of 2010, authorities said. Using an alias, McCrudden posted on Facebook an offer to pay 250,000 euros to kidnap, torture or kill a number of NFA officials, prosecutors wrote.

Even in prison, McCrudden has continued to pen angry letters. A letter in March accusing the court of corruption "proves not only a lack of remorse but also a lack of rational impulse control on the defendant's part," U.S. Attorney Loretta Lynch argued in the government's sentencing recommendation.

McCrudden's lawyers wrote to Judge Hurley to apologize for the letter, saying he has spent the majority of his 15 months at a prison in Queens, New York, in "lock-down" and has received only two visits from his fiancée and children.

3 comments:

  1. I am guessing this man is not black, since Eric Holder has yet to charge the Black Panthers with doing the EXACT SAME THING!

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  2. Anon @ 7:50: source? That sounds like a real interesting story.

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  3. It just goes to show you that if you intend on doing something, don't talk about it, just do it. Then, when you go to prison, at least you actually committed a crime.

    Note: Being a libertarian, I am a proponent of the NAP and civil disobedience, thus I do not condone the initiation of violence.

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