Talk:Stanley Chais

Covered the basics

The basics have been covered. The article could use some filling out. --John Nagle (talk) 17:23, 28 September 2009 (UTC)

Ponzi scheme

Civil suits had been filed by the SEC alleging that he extracted about half a billion from the Madoff scheme, and he was under criminal investigation, but he died at age 84 before being brought to justice.[1]. What do we do? John Nagle (talk) 04:54, 29 March 2015 (UTC)

There were never any criminal charges filed against him, it is factually wrong to state that he was a criminal. It was never shown in criminal or civil proceedings (or even in published documents) that he even had knowledge of the scheme, and the fact that all his own money was incorporated in the same accounts that got wiped out would lend some credibility to his claim. Yes, his money came from the scheme, in the sense that he got paid fees for managing people's money, and yes we might suspect or wonder if it was possible he could have been innocent, but the facts remain facts. 67.243.29.174 (talk) 17:03, 1 April 2015 (UTC)

To the charge of "extracting money", that is a different line of reasoning. Anybody who was duped by the scheme but who also took what they thought was their money out would be subject to "claw back" because even though they were duped, there was no profit so they were not entitled to profit. This would also apply to Chais, he extracted money and it would be subject to claw back and he charged fees based on profit of which there was none; but that is not part of the crime if he had no knowledge of the Ponzi. 67.243.29.174 (talk) 17:03, 1 April 2015 (UTC)

Let me lay out a hypothetical scenario for you (which does not belong in an encyclopedia) to give an alternate explanation that may satisfy your craving for an explanation: perhaps he thought that Madoff was cheating, but that the cheating was insider trading or front running, never suspecting a Ponzi. Maybe he had loose morals or believed that Wall Street was rigged, so he rationalized "getting in on the action". In that scenario, he may not have wished to ask a lot of questions and turned a blind eye to any suspicions. Such actions may have been in violation of other criminal or civil codes for investment advisers (analogy: "I didn't look in the boxes because I thought they were shipping untaxed cigarettes." "Well, you were smuggling guns, it's a crime, so btw are untaxed cigarettes.") so he wouldn't come out and say that's what he had done as a defense, but it would explain how "he could have been so stupid" that you could believe he was also duped by the Ponzi. 67.243.29.174 (talk) 17:00, 1 April 2015 (UTC)

In any event, if you want to claim he was a criminal on the page, you need citations, so stop reverting my small edit unless you can provide them. "Subject of a criminal investigation" does not come close to same thing, the fact that they did not file charges indicates that they had not uncovered enough or any evidence. If there is evidence of a crime, criminal proceedings go before civils, and courts will defer to a defendent's request to postpone civil proceedings if there is a criminal case (self incrimination), and failure to proceed with criminal complaints is considered a violation of right to speedy trial and can jeopardize the case for the prosecution, all evidence which weakens your claim that "yeah but he was surely a criminal". 67.243.29.174 (talk) 17:08, 1 April 2015 (UTC)