Not Guilty? Are you kidding me?

This case has been on my radar since day one. I figured both these fuckwits would pay dearly for the start of the economic collapse.

But I was wrong.  They were both found not guilty this week. I shit you not. The jury deliberated for a whole six-friggin-hours. From the NYT article:

The verdict, the first in a major criminal case stemming from the current financial crisis, brought to an end a two-year ordeal for the managers, Ralph R. Cioffi and Matthew M. Tannin. They had been led away in handcuffs in June 2008 and accused of lying to their investors about the precarious state of the funds they oversaw.

Investors lost $1.6 billion when the funds, heavily invested in mortgage securities, collapsed in the summer of 2007. The fiasco presaged the financial turmoil that would later upend Wall Street and the broader economy.

The three-week trial riveted the financial and legal communities, which viewed it as a bellwether for other cases, both criminal and civil, involving the financial industry. The jury of eight women and four men, drawn mostly from working-class neighborhoods, essentially found that while Mr. Cioffi and Mr. Tannin may have made bad investments, making a bad investment was not a crime.

But..they lied. They lied whilst their hedge funds were sinking in the quicksand. The jurors said they were great salesmen..but they were not liars.

Fucking amazing. Simply...fucking...amazing.

One process remains however..the Securities and Exchange Commission has a shot at these two guys. Hopefully they will get it right.

Because the blue collar jury did not.