Charges Against Corzine Are Seen as Near
By BEN PROTESS

Federal regulators are poised to sue Jon S. Corzine over the collapse of MF Global and the brokerage firm’s misuse of customer money during its final days, a blowup that rattled Wall Street and cast a spotlight on Mr. Corzine, the former New Jersey governor who ran the firm until its bankruptcy in 2011.

The Commodity Futures Trading Commission, the federal agency that regulated MF Global, plans to approve the lawsuit as soon as this week, according to law enforcement officials with knowledge of the case
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Without directly linking Mr. Corzine to the disappearance of more than $1 billion in customer money, the trading commission will probably blame the chief executive for failing to prevent the breach at a lower rung of the firm, the law enforcement officials said. If found liable, he could face millions of dollars in fines and possibly a ban from trading commodities, jeopardizing his future on Wall Street.
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But it would also suggest that authorities have all but removed a greater threat: criminal charges. After nearly two years of stitching together evidence, criminal investigators have concluded that porous risk controls at the firm, rather than fraud, allowed the customer money to disappear, according to the law enforcement officials with knowledge of the case.
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As MF Global teetered on the brink of collapse, employees in Chicago transferred customer money to plug holes in the firm’s own accounts, causing a shortfall for clients like hedge funds and farmers whose funds vanished into banks and clearinghouses. The money might have never disappeared if the banks had not pocketed the customers’ money.
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Since the collapse of the firm, Mr. Corzine has kept a low public profile. Lately, however, he has ventured out a bit. He recently visited Central America for a humanitarian project involving children, for example. And last week, he was seen at an old haunt in Lower Manhattan, Esquires of Wall Street, an 81-year-old barbershop that Mr. Corzine has frequented since his days at Goldman.

http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2013/06/24/u-s-civil-charges-against-corzine-are-seen-as-near/?partner=MYWAY&ei=5065

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