Abacus federal savings bank jill sung12/30/2023 Unfortunately, the subsequent investigation reveals to said authorities several disturbing discrepancies in the bank’s official paperwork, and soon Vance’s office launches a full-blown probe. Jill immediately fires the man and reports the crimes to the appropriate authorities. The ordeal starts when daughter Jill Sung – President & CEO – discovers that one of her loan officers has been issuing fraudulent loans and accepting bribes from the grantees in exchange for falsifying paperwork. Today, Abacus is managed by two of his four daughters, but remains ever close to his heart and sense of self.įor 5 years, beginning in 2009, the Sungs find themselves in the glare of Vance’s spotlight. That’s how Thomas saw – and still sees – himself and his bank. As the film begins, Thomas and his wife, Hwei Lin, sit in their living room watching It’s a Wonderful Life, the classic Frank Capra movie in which George Bailey (James Stewart) serves the immigrant and working-class community of Bedford Falls, protecting them from the evil Mr. ![]() After a career as a successful lawyer, patriarch Thomas Sung decided to found Abacus – choosing the beloved, ancient computational device, historically important to China, as his symbol – after seeing how much the small businesses of Chinatown in Manhattan could benefit from having a bank that served their interests, rather than those of larger, more predatory institutions. We start with the Sungs, a prosperous family of first- and second-generation Chinese-Americans. As this movie, the latest from esteemed documentarian Steve James ( Life Itself), makes abundantly clear, this absurd act of prosecutorial overreach – misguided, at best – not only wasted taxpayer money going after the wrong target, but was perhaps motivated by racial and anti-immigrant condescension (giving Vance and his team the benefit of the doubt, we shall avoid the word “animus”). Vance, Jr., District Attorney for New York County, decided to go after Abacus Federal Savings Bank, our country’s 2,651 st largest bank (according to a title card in the film, though I have seen a slightly different number elsewhere), to show its dedication to financial justice. That’s right, folks, the office of The Honorable Cyrus R. ![]() One bank was, in fact, prosecuted, and an important one at that. The argument went that these august institutions were simply “ too big to fail,” and that shutting them down – or jailing their administrators – would further crash the global markets. News flash: not a single bank was ever prosecuted for malfeasance. ( Documentary legend Steve James’ latest film Abacus: Small Enough to Jail is in select theaters now and will broadcast soon on PBS.)Īs you may recall, the world suffered a major financial crisis in 2008, mostly because of speculative (read: fraudulent) mortgage loans issued by large multinational banks.
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