Lawmakers hoping to learn from disgraced Wall Street titan Jon Corzine the exact whereabouts of $1.2 billion in missing customer cash are likely to be disappointed today.
Corzine, the former CEO of bankrupt commodities broker MF Global, is expected to plead the Fifth when he appears before the House Agriculture Committee and refuse to answer any substantive questions surrounding the Halloween demise of the company, as The Post exclusively reported yesterday on nypost.com.
Corzine, who has hired Andrew Levander, a whitecollar criminal defense lawyer, has likely been advised by the legal eagle, experts said, to keep mum before the House panel, arguing there is no upside to dishing as to how MF Global crashed or whether executives improperly mingled customer money with the firm’s cash, especially while criminal investigations are under way.
The appearance by the 64-year-old executive before the House committee will be his first since his wrong-way bets on European sovereign debt sank the company — and customers still owed money from their MF accounts have been itching to hear from Corzine so they can learn exactly where their money went.
Small armies of investigators, after weeks of poring over MF’s books, have not discovered the missing cash.
Corzine is not expected to give them any relief today, as he has told a leading member of the Agriculture Committee that he will plead the Fifth “on anything of substance,” a source close to the panel told The Post.
A Corzine spokesman declined to comment. Committee spokeswoman Tamara Hinton referred to talk of his level of participation as “speculation.”
Silence from the former MF CEO is sure to grate on lawmakers, who have been getting an earful from their Main Street constituents, including Midwestern farmers and grain operators who buy and sell commodities options as a hedge against price fluctuation.
“It may not have been a big deal for him, but it’s quite a big deal for many of my constituents,” said Rep. Tim Huelskamp (R-Kan.), a member of the Agriculture Committee. “They had to change their buying patterns and risk management because of what happened.”
Some former MF clients have said they can’t pay their bills. Their accounts have been frozen as teams of accountants and regulators search for the missing money.
“If he pleads the Fifth, he condemns himself by his own action,” said Phil Bloomer, spokesman for Rep. Tim Johnson (R-Ill.).
Johnson, a ranking member of the committee, plans to ask Corzine: “How’d you let this happen, and how are you going to make these people whole?” Bloomer said.
“When you testify in these types of situations, there’s very little you can do to help yourself, but there’s a hell of a lot you can do to hurt yourself,” said white-collar lawyer Bill Singer.
“If he’s smart, he’ll listen to his lawyers — whatever they advise him. But sometimes he has a habit of not listening to anybody but himself,” said Julie Roginszky, a spokeswoman for Corzine when he was a US senator.
