COURT WATCH : Sentence Structure

Ivan Boesky, Michael Milken . . . Anthony Essex?

If that latter name doesn’t sound familiar as one from the list of the decade’s Financial Rogues Hall of Shame, that’s because it’s not.

Essex is guilty of loan fraud. He pleaded guilty to defrauding the Los Angeles savings-and-loan where he worked as a high-level officer. He also was the former president of the Los Angeles chapter of the NAACP.

For helping a friend lie to receive a $50,000 loan and filing false information himself to obtain a $121,500 home loan, he received a 6-month prison sentence and an order to pay $63,745.

In handing down the sentence, U.S. District Judge William Keller put Essex’s misdeeds in the context of the national savings-and-loans crisis. “This type of self-dealing, not just by Mr. Essex, but by others . . . has really created chaos.”

Yet, for masterminding another scandal--Wall Street’s biggest insider trading debacle ever--stock manipulator Ivan Boesky was sentenced to three years in prison, and no fine. Billionaire Milken will pay $600 million in penalties for massive securities fraud; his sentence will be determined later.

Ahead lie several prosecutions in the ongoing savings-and-loans scandal. Will sentencing follow the Essex proportion of punishment or the Boesky pattern? If they follow the Essex pattern--but don’t count on that--then those most responsible for the biggest financial mess in U.S. history should spend several lifetimes behind bars.