March 31, 2025 • 12 mins
Chris quits hoping for white-collar crime justice after 25 years on Watchdog on Wall Street. Trump’s pardons of Trevor Milton ($2M GOP donor) and Carlos Watson prove it: pay enough, walk free. Charlie Javis crossed a “made” bank—JPMorgan—and pays the price. www.watchdogonwallstreet.com
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
The Watchdog on Wall Street podcast, explaining the news coming
out of the complex worlds of finance, economics, and politics
and the impact it we'll have on everyday Americans. Author,
investment banker, consumer advocate, analyst, and trader Chris Markowski.
Speaker 2 (00:16):
White collar crime pays It does it does one more
other thing?
Speaker 3 (00:21):
I quit?
Speaker 4 (00:22):
Yeah, I officially quit. I've given up. I've been doing
this show for twenty five years now, and we originally
started the Watchdog on Wall Street Show to go after
financial fraud, crooks, all of these things, and so it
is kind of I guess I'm naive thinking that eventually,
(00:45):
eventually something would actually be done about it. So I'm
going I officially quit and trying to actually believing that
we're going to eventually put a stop to the criminality
and end white collar fraud. Makes an attempt or at
least prosecute white collar fraud because it's not going to happen. Yeah,
Am I going to continue to point it out? Am
(01:06):
I going to continue to do this program as long
as God wills me to do this program, to go
out there and try to educate people about the terrain,
the realities of Wall Street, white collar crime, politicians, yes,
but do I believe that anything is ever going to
be done about it? No? No, I have officially given
(01:30):
up on that. And case in point, last week we
talked about Donald Trump, Donald Trump partnering a crook. He did,
he pardoned a crook. Now I didn't realize. I didn't
realize at the time that I did the podcast. So
(01:50):
there's more to this story. There's more to this story.
As it turns out, Trevor Milton. Trevor Milton, who we
pardoned last week, donate two million dollars to Republicans between
September and December of last year. His largest contribution was
nine hundred and twenty thousand dollars to the Trump forty
(02:12):
seven Committee. He had never ever made a political contribution
ever ever in the past, but he did this past year.
Let me break this down for here. The reason why
you're not hearing a lot about this Trevor Milton bit.
(02:36):
The reason why you're not hearing democrats really point this
out and go berserk over this because this would be
I think a huge political points. I mean, this guy
ripped off investors, gets pardoned after he cuts two million
dollars worth of checks, almost a million of Donald Trump recently.
(03:00):
Why aren't the Democrats jumping up and down making hay
with this, Well, because they do it too. They do
it too. You remember the story made a little bit
of hay at the time. Remember the Mark Rich story.
Remember Denise Rich was buddies with the Clintons. The song
(03:21):
writer Denise Rich and her husband was trading He was
in Switzerland. He couldn't come back to the United States
because he was trading oil with the Iranians at the time. Yeah,
he magically got apart from the Clintons. And this happens
all the time. This happens all the time. And you know,
basically the Democrats recognized, but we want to be able
(03:44):
to raise money off of letting white collar criminals get
out of jail free too. It's like monopoly.
Speaker 5 (03:50):
You're gonna get out of jail free card if you
pay enough money to whoever's in office, whatever political party
that may be at this point in time.
Speaker 4 (04:02):
But Trump did it again. Try I got word of this.
This morning, Trump commuted the sentence of Ozzie Media founder
Carlos Watson. Carlos Watson was supposed to begin serving a
one hundred and sixteen month prison term for a multi
(04:26):
million dollar white collar crime fraud scheme. He claimed that
his media company had deals with Google and Oprah Winfrey.
Trump commuted the sentence, also commuted the probation that was
imposed as well. Also removes a criminal penalty on Watson,
(04:50):
which includes the judge's order of having him have to
pay sixty million dollars in forfeiture and more than thirty
six million dollars in restitution. I'm sure Carlos will be
cutting a check to the elephants very shortly, if he
hasn't already. I don't know. Again, this this scam that
(05:11):
he was running. He had fake YouTube videos with with
people's voices. Yeah, this is white collar crime pays. I've
been covering this for so long and it disgusted me.
I mean, you want to go back. I want to
go back to the whole dot com collapse and what
(05:32):
happened there and all the Wall Street execs and all
the people that nobody, nobody got punished. Elliott Spitzer put
a back office guy from Bank of America went after him. Oh,
oh sure, you had some of the people from some
of the big firms where it was egregious there at
the time. Yeah, the ken Leys at Enron. I mean,
(05:53):
you couldn't avoid that collapse there. But for the most part,
if you're connected in the right way, you're getting off.
You are getting off again. I recalled, I wrote this,
and I pulled it up, went into our way way
back machine or archives, return of the indulgence. I wrote
this in November of two thousand and two. The concept
(06:18):
of an indulgence is based on the medieval Catholic doctrine
that states sinners must not only repent of their sins
that they have committed, they must also confess these sins
and pay some sort of retribution. Author and historian Richard
Hooker said that the history of medieval Catholic doctor in
any ways attempt to find ways to present exterior signs
(06:39):
for the state of the individual believer. In order for
an individual to demonstrate that he or she is truly
repentant and not just mouthed in the words, a concept
that temple punishment was created. The sinner need to undergo
some punishment or task. The sin would not be forgiven
until this was accomplished. Temple punishment involved doing good deeds
such as speeding the poor or caring for the sick.
Sins that were not expiating, would land the centered purgatory.
(07:02):
If you're not familiar with purgatory, read a little Dante. Careful.
This is not for the faint of heart anyway. Anyway,
one of the reasons why the Catholic Church created indulgences
the race was collecting money was that was it. It
wanted to collect money. Again. At the time, the medieval
Catholic Church was government. It was the source of practically
(07:23):
all social programs. Again, it was of men. It was
corruption that was involved again, social programs, corruption, hefty price
stag So the church, like our current government, was in
constant search of new and clever ways to raise money.
The idea of selling indulgences no different than the out
(07:44):
hidden tax that a government put out, or you know again,
a Wall Street payoff like we're looking right now, a
payoff to a politician buy your way out of purgatory
six hundred years ago, or buy your way out of
jail today.
Speaker 3 (07:58):
Again.
Speaker 4 (07:59):
I wrote this in in two thousand and two. It's
what happened. I get back in two thousand and two,
Elliott Spitzer puts out, us is gonna permanently change away.
Wall Street operates like you know one billion dollar fine.
They didn't do anything. Oh, everyone will put further restraints
on Chinese walls between investment banking and the sales. It was.
(08:25):
It was all nonsense, just like Dodd Frank was all nonsense.
And no one got in trouble. There, I get in trouble.
Speaker 3 (08:33):
There.
Speaker 4 (08:34):
No, no, there's one caveat. There's one caveat to you
know the rules of white collar crime. I mean I
plucked about this before. I actually will columns about the fact.
I said, listen, if you've had an ethical bypass at Earth,
if you're pretty much a crook, don't get yourself a degree,
(08:55):
get yourself a good to get yourself on Wall Street
because it's a great place to thrive criminals. It is
a fantastic place if you are the criminal mind to
thrive because guess what, you're often protected by the firm.
The firm pays a fine, which means the taxpayers are
paying it. You get away, unless, unless, of course, you
(09:16):
rip off one of the big firms. Yep, that there's
a caveat. There's a caveat in that case, no, you
are gonna pay. Story have the story over the years
of various different staffers at big banks or big firms
that took advantage of them.
Speaker 2 (09:36):
Oh my god, they throw the book at them, they
throw them book.
Speaker 4 (09:41):
At them, and hey, listen, frauds. Fore now I get that.
But it's you know, it's you know, fascinating, is is that? Hey, hey,
you rip off, rip off the general public, screw the
general public? Eh, where it could be sentence far and
pay your way out of it. Whatever it may be.
Rip off, rip off a connected guy. It's like always
like the mafia. So you made men, you rip off
(10:04):
one of the big men. No, No, you can't do that.
Charlie Javis, founder of a startup that was purchased by
JP Morgan Chase, was convicted in federal court on Friday
of defrauding the bank by vastly overstating the company's customer list.
Speaker 2 (10:24):
Basically, what Charlie did is exactly what all of these
big mates do all the time with the bs that
they put out and how they run up these nonsensical companies,
basically bullshitting the.
Speaker 4 (10:40):
General public again and again and again. That's what Charlie did,
except she did it to JP Morgan.
Speaker 3 (10:46):
All No, JP Morgan's made men, okay, mafia pounce JP
Morgan is a maid matn okay.
Speaker 4 (10:57):
In American Goodfellas, remember Joe Heshi, Joe PESHI got ticked off.
There was a woman. It was a party, a coming
home party. I forget the name of the mobster in it.
And he offended Joe Pesci. He's talking about his shinebox. Yeah, yeah,
he's just shine his shoes. Go get your shine bocks.
I don't shine shoes. Well, anyway, they got pissed off,
(11:18):
ended up killing a guy. The guy was a maid man.
You can't kill a maid man. Can't go after the
may man. You gotta get permission to do that from
the hires up.
Speaker 1 (11:27):
Uh.
Speaker 4 (11:27):
Then you can't go after a big bank. You can't.
Speaker 3 (11:31):
They're made.
Speaker 4 (11:32):
I can't do that. And that's why you know, Charlie's
getting in deep, deep trouble. I'm just explaining to you
how the world works. Okay.
Speaker 3 (11:40):
I don't like it.
Speaker 4 (11:42):
I don't like it.
Speaker 5 (11:42):
And again, if you pay attention to what we tell
you here, you're gonna avoid yourself a lot of pain,
a lot of nonsense over the years.
Speaker 4 (11:49):
I'm gonna continue to report on this to you. But
talking change, it's not gonna change. It's a big club
and you and I in it. George Carlin Line Gotta
give him credit again, it again and again, but it's true.
Watchdog on Wall Street dot Com
The Watchdog on Wall Street podcast, explaining the news coming
out of the complex worlds of finance, economics, and politics
and the impact it we'll have on everyday Americans. Author,
investment banker, consumer advocate, analyst, and trader Chris Markowski.
Speaker 2 (00:16):
White collar crime pays It does it does one more
other thing?
Speaker 3 (00:21):
I quit?
Speaker 4 (00:22):
Yeah, I officially quit. I've given up. I've been doing
this show for twenty five years now, and we originally
started the Watchdog on Wall Street Show to go after
financial fraud, crooks, all of these things, and so it
is kind of I guess I'm naive thinking that eventually,
(00:45):
eventually something would actually be done about it. So I'm
going I officially quit and trying to actually believing that
we're going to eventually put a stop to the criminality
and end white collar fraud. Makes an attempt or at
least prosecute white collar fraud because it's not going to happen. Yeah,
Am I going to continue to point it out? Am
(01:06):
I going to continue to do this program as long
as God wills me to do this program, to go
out there and try to educate people about the terrain,
the realities of Wall Street, white collar crime, politicians, yes,
but do I believe that anything is ever going to
be done about it? No? No, I have officially given
(01:30):
up on that. And case in point, last week we
talked about Donald Trump, Donald Trump partnering a crook. He did,
he pardoned a crook. Now I didn't realize. I didn't
realize at the time that I did the podcast. So
(01:50):
there's more to this story. There's more to this story.
As it turns out, Trevor Milton. Trevor Milton, who we
pardoned last week, donate two million dollars to Republicans between
September and December of last year. His largest contribution was
nine hundred and twenty thousand dollars to the Trump forty
(02:12):
seven Committee. He had never ever made a political contribution
ever ever in the past, but he did this past year.
Let me break this down for here. The reason why
you're not hearing a lot about this Trevor Milton bit.
(02:36):
The reason why you're not hearing democrats really point this
out and go berserk over this because this would be
I think a huge political points. I mean, this guy
ripped off investors, gets pardoned after he cuts two million
dollars worth of checks, almost a million of Donald Trump recently.
(03:00):
Why aren't the Democrats jumping up and down making hay
with this, Well, because they do it too. They do
it too. You remember the story made a little bit
of hay at the time. Remember the Mark Rich story.
Remember Denise Rich was buddies with the Clintons. The song
(03:21):
writer Denise Rich and her husband was trading He was
in Switzerland. He couldn't come back to the United States
because he was trading oil with the Iranians at the time. Yeah,
he magically got apart from the Clintons. And this happens
all the time. This happens all the time. And you know,
basically the Democrats recognized, but we want to be able
(03:44):
to raise money off of letting white collar criminals get
out of jail free too. It's like monopoly.
Speaker 5 (03:50):
You're gonna get out of jail free card if you
pay enough money to whoever's in office, whatever political party
that may be at this point in time.
Speaker 4 (04:02):
But Trump did it again. Try I got word of this.
This morning, Trump commuted the sentence of Ozzie Media founder
Carlos Watson. Carlos Watson was supposed to begin serving a
one hundred and sixteen month prison term for a multi
(04:26):
million dollar white collar crime fraud scheme. He claimed that
his media company had deals with Google and Oprah Winfrey.
Trump commuted the sentence, also commuted the probation that was
imposed as well. Also removes a criminal penalty on Watson,
(04:50):
which includes the judge's order of having him have to
pay sixty million dollars in forfeiture and more than thirty
six million dollars in restitution. I'm sure Carlos will be
cutting a check to the elephants very shortly, if he
hasn't already. I don't know. Again, this this scam that
(05:11):
he was running. He had fake YouTube videos with with
people's voices. Yeah, this is white collar crime pays. I've
been covering this for so long and it disgusted me.
I mean, you want to go back. I want to
go back to the whole dot com collapse and what
(05:32):
happened there and all the Wall Street execs and all
the people that nobody, nobody got punished. Elliott Spitzer put
a back office guy from Bank of America went after him. Oh,
oh sure, you had some of the people from some
of the big firms where it was egregious there at
the time. Yeah, the ken Leys at Enron. I mean,
(05:53):
you couldn't avoid that collapse there. But for the most part,
if you're connected in the right way, you're getting off.
You are getting off again. I recalled, I wrote this,
and I pulled it up, went into our way way
back machine or archives, return of the indulgence. I wrote
this in November of two thousand and two. The concept
(06:18):
of an indulgence is based on the medieval Catholic doctrine
that states sinners must not only repent of their sins
that they have committed, they must also confess these sins
and pay some sort of retribution. Author and historian Richard
Hooker said that the history of medieval Catholic doctor in
any ways attempt to find ways to present exterior signs
(06:39):
for the state of the individual believer. In order for
an individual to demonstrate that he or she is truly
repentant and not just mouthed in the words, a concept
that temple punishment was created. The sinner need to undergo
some punishment or task. The sin would not be forgiven
until this was accomplished. Temple punishment involved doing good deeds
such as speeding the poor or caring for the sick.
Sins that were not expiating, would land the centered purgatory.
(07:02):
If you're not familiar with purgatory, read a little Dante. Careful.
This is not for the faint of heart anyway. Anyway,
one of the reasons why the Catholic Church created indulgences
the race was collecting money was that was it. It
wanted to collect money. Again. At the time, the medieval
Catholic Church was government. It was the source of practically
(07:23):
all social programs. Again, it was of men. It was
corruption that was involved again, social programs, corruption, hefty price
stag So the church, like our current government, was in
constant search of new and clever ways to raise money.
The idea of selling indulgences no different than the out
(07:44):
hidden tax that a government put out, or you know again,
a Wall Street payoff like we're looking right now, a
payoff to a politician buy your way out of purgatory
six hundred years ago, or buy your way out of
jail today.
Speaker 3 (07:58):
Again.
Speaker 4 (07:59):
I wrote this in in two thousand and two. It's
what happened. I get back in two thousand and two,
Elliott Spitzer puts out, us is gonna permanently change away.
Wall Street operates like you know one billion dollar fine.
They didn't do anything. Oh, everyone will put further restraints
on Chinese walls between investment banking and the sales. It was.
(08:25):
It was all nonsense, just like Dodd Frank was all nonsense.
And no one got in trouble. There, I get in trouble.
Speaker 3 (08:33):
There.
Speaker 4 (08:34):
No, no, there's one caveat. There's one caveat to you
know the rules of white collar crime. I mean I
plucked about this before. I actually will columns about the fact.
I said, listen, if you've had an ethical bypass at Earth,
if you're pretty much a crook, don't get yourself a degree,
(08:55):
get yourself a good to get yourself on Wall Street
because it's a great place to thrive criminals. It is
a fantastic place if you are the criminal mind to
thrive because guess what, you're often protected by the firm.
The firm pays a fine, which means the taxpayers are
paying it. You get away, unless, unless, of course, you
(09:16):
rip off one of the big firms. Yep, that there's
a caveat. There's a caveat in that case, no, you
are gonna pay. Story have the story over the years
of various different staffers at big banks or big firms
that took advantage of them.
Speaker 2 (09:36):
Oh my god, they throw the book at them, they
throw them book.
Speaker 4 (09:41):
At them, and hey, listen, frauds. Fore now I get that.
But it's you know, it's you know, fascinating, is is that? Hey, hey,
you rip off, rip off the general public, screw the
general public? Eh, where it could be sentence far and
pay your way out of it. Whatever it may be.
Rip off, rip off a connected guy. It's like always
like the mafia. So you made men, you rip off
(10:04):
one of the big men. No, No, you can't do that.
Charlie Javis, founder of a startup that was purchased by
JP Morgan Chase, was convicted in federal court on Friday
of defrauding the bank by vastly overstating the company's customer list.
Speaker 2 (10:24):
Basically, what Charlie did is exactly what all of these
big mates do all the time with the bs that
they put out and how they run up these nonsensical companies,
basically bullshitting the.
Speaker 4 (10:40):
General public again and again and again. That's what Charlie did,
except she did it to JP Morgan.
Speaker 3 (10:46):
All No, JP Morgan's made men, okay, mafia pounce JP
Morgan is a maid matn okay.
Speaker 4 (10:57):
In American Goodfellas, remember Joe Heshi, Joe PESHI got ticked off.
There was a woman. It was a party, a coming
home party. I forget the name of the mobster in it.
And he offended Joe Pesci. He's talking about his shinebox. Yeah, yeah,
he's just shine his shoes. Go get your shine bocks.
I don't shine shoes. Well, anyway, they got pissed off,
(11:18):
ended up killing a guy. The guy was a maid man.
You can't kill a maid man. Can't go after the
may man. You gotta get permission to do that from
the hires up.
Speaker 1 (11:27):
Uh.
Speaker 4 (11:27):
Then you can't go after a big bank. You can't.
Speaker 3 (11:31):
They're made.
Speaker 4 (11:32):
I can't do that. And that's why you know, Charlie's
getting in deep, deep trouble. I'm just explaining to you
how the world works. Okay.
Speaker 3 (11:40):
I don't like it.
Speaker 4 (11:42):
I don't like it.
Speaker 5 (11:42):
And again, if you pay attention to what we tell
you here, you're gonna avoid yourself a lot of pain,
a lot of nonsense over the years.
Speaker 4 (11:49):
I'm gonna continue to report on this to you. But
talking change, it's not gonna change. It's a big club
and you and I in it. George Carlin Line Gotta
give him credit again, it again and again, but it's true.
Watchdog on Wall Street dot Com
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