In the classic account "The Great Crash," John Kenneth Galbraith notes that booms always mask many cases of embezzlement, which come to light during the bust.
Two large cases of embezzlement by local officials ran up the conviction numbers, plus a smattering of mostly small-bore crime.
Citing cases of embezzlement by those entrusted with the affairs of elderly and disabled people, the chief justice of the New Jersey Supreme Court called on Wednesday for citizen volunteers to help weed out fraud in the state's legal guardianship program.
Her reform efforts stumbled in the face of resistant autonomous chapters, a staff that chafed under her hard-driving style, cases of embezzlement and lax controls, which led to record fines for infected blood products.
The latest is over the fees paid to a Spanish company to help in electoral automation; the help did not happen, and some officials claimed the cash was diverted.The council's second vice-chairman went public about irregularities at it, claiming there had been illegal appointments and cases of embezzlement.
But these detectives are not investigating a bank robbery or a case of corporate embezzlement.
The former prosecutor, Edwin H. Stier, sent a sharply worded letter that accused James P. Hoffa, the Teamsters president, of blocking a broad investigation into possible union corruption in Chicago and of dragging his feet in a case of alleged embezzlement by a Teamsters leader in Houston.
In Jay's case, the woman had several civil cases for embezzlement pending, but no criminal record.
On Monday, Mr. Khodorkovsky, still behind bars, was convicted on new charges of embezzlement in a case that has been widely viewed as an indicator of whether Russia will take even modest steps toward establishing a real rule of law.
