Sarbanes-Oxley doesn’t just over-regulate corporate governance and harm U.S. capital markets; it can be used by zealous prosecutors in many contexts. Such as prosecuting a lawyer who destroyed a church computer that had child pornography on it, because he didn’t guess that the government would be investigating the incident.
For intended use only?
Sarbanes-Oxley doesn’t just over-regulate corporate governance and harm U.S. capital markets; it can be used by zealous prosecutors in many contexts. Such as prosecuting a lawyer who destroyed a church computer that had child pornography on it, because he didn’t guess that the government would be investigating the incident.
One Comment
Assuming the facts of the case are as stated in the newspaper article, it is clear that the lawyer knew that he was destroying evidence of a crime. While, as in the case of the RICO law, prosecutors appear to be using it beyond what it was intended for, I have no sympathy for this lawyer.
By the way, isn’t there a law that directly pertains to what he did? Can you deliberately destroy evidence of a crime as long as the police are not investigating the crime? Moreover, since a lawyer is supposed to be an officer of the court, wouldn’t he have a greater obligation to preserve the evidence?