Ex-Deutsche Bank trader Matthew Connolly appeals from judgment in LIBOR rigging case
Matthew Connolly is taking the judgment of the New York Southern District Court to the Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit.
Less than a month after Judge Colleen McMahon of the New York Southern District Court issued the judgments regarding two former Deutsche Bank traders convicted of LIBOR manipulation, one of the defendants – Matthew Connolly, has filed an appeal from the District Court’s judgment.
The appeal notice was filed with the District Court on November 14, 2019.
Let’s recall that Connolly was found guilty on two counts of wire fraud and one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud and bank fraud. He managed to avoid prison term but was ordered to pay a fine of $100,000.
The Department of Justice had pushed for a much harsher penalty, arguing that Matthew Connolly, along with Gavin Black and numerous co-conspirators at Deutsche Bank, manipulated LIBOR “with callous and knowing disregard for the far-reaching effects of their actions”. As supervisor of the bank’s New York trading desk, Connolly was said to have leveraged his position of authority and explicitly directed his subordinate, Timothy Parietti, to email the London-based submitters with the desk’s positions so they could manipulate LIBOR in New York’s favor.
The Government noted that Connolly remains openly defiant, showing no signs of remorse or acceptance of responsibility. He wrote a book (Matthew Connolly, Target: A Scapegoat’s Guide to the Federal Justice System) about his trial full of rather obscene expressions: referring (redactions are applied – Ed.) to the prosecution as “sneaky f***ers,” “the best scumbags in the world,” “slime,” and to Mr. Parietti as “the little f***er,” “a**clown,” “coward,” “feeble little a**hole.”
The Government has argued that the Court should impose a substantial term of incarceration – at offense level 34, by the government’s calculation, the Guidelines call for 151-188 months, as well as the maximum available fine of $3,000,000. This fine represents 3x$1,000,000, with $1 million being the maximum criminal fine for each of the three counts of conviction pursuant to 18 U.S.C. §§ 1343, 1344, 1349, and 3571(b).
