SDNY COURTHOUSE, June 4 – When Kam Wong came to be sentenced for stealing nearly $10 million from New York City's Municipal Credit Union on June 4 before U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York Judge John G. Koeltl, the courtroom was full, including Stella M. Mendes, Administrator of the MCU as it went into NCUA conservatorship.
Judge Koetlt repeatedly asked if the conservatorship was based on financial condition - that is, the theft of funds by Wong - or the management. At one point Assistant U.S. Attorney Eli J. Mark stood up to answer, until his colleague Daniel C. Richenthal stopped him. Ultimately, no one from the NCUA or New York State Department of Financial Services spoke at the sentencing.
While the Guidelines called for 97 to 121 months, Judge Koeltl imposed a sentence of 66 months, still longer than those bank executives responsible for the subprime financial meltdown. Judge Koetlt also recommended Wong for the Bureau of Prison's drug problem, over the government's objection.
Wong' defense lawyer Jeffrey H. Lichtman said he'd never seen the government take such a position in his 28 years as an attorney. AUSA Richenthal called it "offensive" to say the government merely wanted to avoid any shortening of Wong's sentence.
Lichtman wrote in his sentencing submission that "with help from his dentist and a crooked member of the MCU's Supervisory Committee, [Wong] put himself on a daily regimen of judgment suppressing opiates, popping hydrocodone pills and sipping from a bottle of codeine laced syrup at his desk," citing PSR Paragraphs 43, 93-96. But who might that be? More on Patreon, here.