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Does crime pay?
Wall Street Crime and Punishment is a weekly series by Benzinga's Phil Hall that chronicles the bankers, brokers and financial ne’er-do-wells whose ambition and greed takes them in the wrong direction.
In the annals of Wall Street miscreancy, few titans of business have experienced a more celebrated rise and ignominious crash than Richard Whitney. In October 1929, he was praised for an act of unprecedented bravery that singlehandedly halted an epic panic — but nine years later, he was sitting in a cell in Sing Sing after being convicted of embezzlement.
How did Whitney go from such a glorious point A to a tragic point B? Well, it’s a bit complicated.