‘NatWest Three’ face jail for Enron fraud says The Daily Telegraph reporting the probable result of a plea bargaining effort by their lawyers which might see them jailed for thirty seven months instead of a possible thirty five years after they agreed to admit to one count of fraud instead of four.
The DT then explains out that the three men were extradited to the USA “amid much public protest”……what the paper fails to point out was that the “public protest” was mainly cheerled by the DT itself. Over a period of several months we were drip fed a skilful PR campaign of sob stories and family photo ops portraying the three as innocent victims of an American witch hunt.
This didn’t cut much ice with many of us who realised that a lot of UK suits (some of them well known to the media on this side of the Atlantic) who sailed a little close to the financial edge were terrified that, instead of the ponderous investigation and genteel slap on the wrist usually given to “respectable”fraudsters by British courts, they would face an American judicial regime which acts swiftly and hands out draconian prison sentences and massive fines……………
