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Pastimes : Jonathan Lebed, 14 Year Old Boy Fined 1/4 Million by SEC -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: donjuan_demarco who wrote (50)	9/21/2000 8:14:15 PM
From: donjuan_demarco	Respond to of 172

Next time a kid gets caught with some cocaine, instead of sending him to jail they should just make him "disgorge the profits." This is a double standard. If the Lebed kid broke the law, send him to juvi and let him face the consequences. If he didn't break the law, leave him alone.

To: donjuan_demarco who wrote (50)	9/21/2000 8:38:31 PM
From: EL KABONG!!!	Respond to of 172

donjuan, While I wholeheartedly agree with the spirit of your post, we must also look at the practical side. I too, would have liked to seen some form of punishment that is/was more severe than merely "confiscating" less than 1/2 of the monies he "earned" trading. At the very least, I would have liked to seen a 100% disgorgement, and community service hours. But as I said earlier, the SEC has to make financial judgements based on criteria other than what is fair or what constitutes justice. And like any other businessman, it often boils down to things like budgets and human resources, both of which the SEC is sorely lacking in at the moment. So they "fined" him for the easy stuff, the stuff that couldn't be easily contested, and accepted a plea agreement, rather than tie up precious resources litigating something where they might not get 100% anyway. To me, it's a trade-off. For the moment, they've got the kid off of the threads, and most stock thread participants know all about him. His credibility is destroyed. And the SEC can now turn its attention to someone else, maybe someone or some company much worse than this kid. KJC