![]() ![]() It’s not every day that you end up rooting for a bank, but the story “Abacus: Small Enough to Jail” tells is no ordinary tale. The trial itself was off limits to cameras, but the film does an expert job re-creating it using actors reading testimony and vivid courtroom illustrations by Christine Cornell. This included not only the two sisters (Jill Sung and Vera Sung) who ran the bank but also sister Chanterelle Sung, a former assistant district attorney in Vance’s office who was so distraught by what she saw as the “incompetence combined with arrogance” in the indictment that she quit her job.īecause Thomas took the charges, and some inexcusable humiliation that went along with it, as an insult to the entire Chinatown community, he refused to back down even in the face of an intense government investigation that took five years, used hundreds of lawyers and led to a 240-count indictment. So when the government decided that complicity with corruption went high enough to indict the entire bank, the Sung family was shocked. One of the ironies of the Abacus prosecution is that it began with a case of fraud by one of the bank’s loan officers that Abacus itself discovered and reported to federal authorities. Set up to appeal to his immigrant neighbors, who often lack secure places for their valuables, Abacus for instance rents out 8,000 safe deposit boxes, way more than the norm.īut while this ought to be a heartwarming story, it has another side: a legal case that lasted five years, culminated in a four-month trial and ended up costing the Sungs $10 million to defend. Abacus Bank has distributed 100,000 COVID-19 SBRG checks to 10 non-profit organizations in our community. Thomas started Abacus because he realized that while major banks were happy to take deposits from Chinese customers, they were unwilling to make loans. Helping New York’s Chinese community has always been one of his key focuses. at age 16, Thomas was a lawyer before he founded his bank. As to his own banking story, Thomas admits, “in reality it’s not that simple.”īorn in Shanghai and arriving in the U.S. It’s a favorite film of Thomas and his wife, Hwei Lin Sung, who tear up when they watch. “Abacus” begins with a clip from one of the few American films with a banker hero, Frank Capra’s “It’s a Wonderful Life” starring Jimmy Stewart. and Polly Greenberg, the chief of his office’s Major Economic Crimes Bureau. Without Abacus’ help in fudging the information in their mortgage applications, these applicants would have never qualified for Fannie Mae’s assistance.In addition to the inevitable complement of journalists (which in this case include Rolling Stone’s Matt Taibbi and the New Yorker’s Jiayang Fan), James was able to extensively interview the people who decided to bring the prosecution, New York County Dist. Vance, as he read from a prepared statement. “These borrowers primarily work in cash-only businesses in the Tri-State area –restaurants, nail salons, and the like,” said Mr. Vance alleges, encouraged its applicants to fudge its personal information –like immigration and employment status– to secure these mortgages. We have received another 5-Star rating from Bauerfinancial. Seven of those people already entered guilty pleas, while the remainder of them were set to face arraignment –and Judge Renee White– in state court in Manhattan throughout the day.īy also indicting Abacus itself, the bank became the first financial institution to be charged by the Manhattan D.A.’s office since the Bank of Credit and Commerce International was indicted in 1991 for paying large bribes to bank regulators and central bankers in 10 countries like Pakistan and Nigeria.īetween to February 3, 2010, Abacus, Mr. Abacus Bank has distributed 100,000 COVID-19 SBRG checks to 10 non-profit organizations in our community. Abacus Federal Savings Bank Jun 2018 - Present5 years Greater New York City Area Human Resources Manager Museum of the City of New York Jul 2014 - Mar 20183 years 9 months Greater New York. Nineteen individuals, all former employees and managers of Abacus Federal Savings Bank, were indicted as a result of the scam. The scheme, however –in which Abacus Federal Savings Bank, a bank with predominantly Chinese clientele, allegedly helped its customers submit fraudulent mortgage applications that resulted in approximately a billion dollars worth of mortgages issued out by Fannie Mae (FNMA)– was infinitely larger in size, scope and relevance. SEE ALSO: Let’s Use This Juneteenth to Focus On Narrowing Racial Housing Gaps ![]()
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