![]() The case is the subject of the PBS documentary Abacus: Small Enough to Jail that has been nominated for an Acacemy Award. Throughout James’s scrappy story, there’s a winning sense of humour, showing the spunk of people not used to getting pushed around. Abacus, which was founded by the father of Vera Sung ’90 and Chanterelle Sung ’04, was, and remains, the only bank indicted in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis. We see Sung and his whip-smart adult daughters batting around courtroom strategies over plates of sizzling food. Doing business in this community was a matter of personal pride for the bank’s softly-spoken founder Thomas Sung. This Academy Award-nominated documentary, directed by Steve James (Hoop Dreams), tells the little-known story of the only U.S. For its diligence, Abacus was slapped with multiple conspiracy indictments, triggering a five-year courtroom battle.ĭirector Steve James, maker of the mighty ‘Hoop Dreams’, explores the bank’s idealistic origins, set up to serve immigrants, mostly in New York’s Chinatown. As we learn in ‘Abacus: Small Enough to Jail’ – which plays as a mix of legal thriller and warm family comedy – the company did have a bad-apple employee, who was duly fired and reported to the authorities. ![]() Actually, one company in the US did end up in the dock: a tiny family-run Chinese-American firm, Abacus Federal Savings Bank, which became a scapegoat for the whole industry. Eight individuals publicly accepted criminal responsibility for their roles in this conspiracy by pleading guilty to crimes they committed while employed in Abacus Bank’s loan department.Why did virtually all of the big banks escape prosecution after the economic crisis? No matter how many times we ask, it’s still a rage-inducing question. When confronted with loan after loan in which the paperwork was allegedly falsified, a grand jury voted to indict the bank and other individuals. The ensuing grand jury investigation revealed widespread fraud. “This matter originated in 2010 with a complaint by an Abacus Bank borrower to the NYPD, who referred it to our office. ![]() “You would be hard-pressed to find a prosecutor’s office that would not have brought this case,” the spokesman said. This Academy Award-nominated documentary, directed by Steve James (Hoop Dreams), tells the little-known story of the only U.S. Sung, pictured above, is presented as a George Bailey-like figure who had his community’s interest at heart, and the movie even opens with Sung and his wife watching “It’s a Wonderful Life.” The family plans to attend the Oscars with James on March 4.Ī spokesman for Vance responded to “Abacus” and James’ comments. Manhattan-based Abacus Federal Savings Bank is a proverbial mom and pop business, its founder, Thomas Sung, a lawyer by trade, starting it solely in seeing an unmet need for someone like him, a first generation American, and his family. The movie presents that argument, but focuses on the family of Thomas Sung, the founder of the bank, as they went through the ordeal of fighting the charges. Vance, who appears in the movie, defends the decision to prosecute as a responsible move to root out corruption, and he denies that the bank was unfairly targeted. Also acquitted were two of its senior officers, who argued that they were not aware that loan originators in the bank had a scheme to produce false mortgage documents and collect commissions. ![]() A jury found the bank not guilty of mortgage fraud and a host of other charges in 2015.
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