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Thursday, February 16, 2012

Giants vs. 49ers: Kyle Williams receives death threats after overtime fumble

For every playoff hero, there is goat, and Sunday’s AFC and NFC championship games followed the script.

In Baltimore’s 23-20 loss to New England, you could take your pick of goats between Lee Evans, who dropped the go-ahead touchdown, and Billy Cundiff, who shanked the game-tying 32-yard field goal attempt.

But after his San Francisco 49ers fell to the New York Giants, 20-17 in overtime last night, punt returner Kyle Williams had it just as bad. The 23-year-old had to swallow a pair of costly punt handling miscues — the second of which resulted in New York’s game-winning field goal.

Several 49ers players were quick to rally around their devastated teammate, but some fans were not as forgiving. In the immediate aftermath of Lawrence Tynes’ game-winning field goal, Williams began receiving death threats on the Internet.

Williams was bombarded with vicious comments on Twitter, with angry fans writing they hope his family dies or that his car gets bombed. (The San Jose Mercury News has a full list here.)

The first mistake came early in the fourth quarter when Williams hesitated before getting out of the way of a bouncing punt. The ball nicked his knee and New York’s Devin Thomas recovered, setting up the Giants’ only second-half score.

The second miscue came in overtime, when Jacquian Williams punched the ball out of Williams’s grasp to give the Giants the field position they needed to put the game away. In all, the unfortunate bounce and the fumble directly led to 10 of New York’s 20 points.

“You hate to be the last guy that had the ball, to give it up that way in that fashion and to lose a game of this magnitude,” Williams said. “But it is what it is, and we’re going to move forward as a team.”

His San Francisco teammates agreed.

“The game didn’t come down to Kyle Williams — it never did,” 49ers lineman Ricky Jean Francois said. “We could’ve ended that game many times.”

@KyleWilliams_10 keep ur head up. U r my brother n teammate N I would put u back there all over again. We all lost this game tonight not u.
— Patrick willis (@PatrickWillis52) January 23, 2012

I didn't think this would happen but ppl need to get a grip! Leave Kyle alone! We win and lose as a team. Not from one person or play.
— David Akers (@DavidAkers2) January 23, 2012

More NFL playoffs coverage from Washington Post Sports:

Giants beat 49ers 20-17 in overtime to advance to Super Bowl

Hamilton: NBC lucks out with Tom vs. Eli Super Bowl matchup

Mike Wise: Cundiff’s missed field goal is a horrible end to a game that had everything

Lee Evans shoulders the blame for Ravens’ loss after dropping go-ahead TD

Patriots are early 3-point favorites for Super Bowl

Early Lead: Who will win Super Bowl XLVI?

View the original article here

Friday, January 27, 2012

Judge Rakoff on free love, the death penalty, defending crooks and Wall Street justice

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Judge Rakoff on free love, the death penalty, defending crooks and Wall Street justice

(James Patrick Cooper/ ) - U.S. District Judge JEd Rakoff, who recently rejected a proposed $33 Million settlement that would have resolved th U.S. Securities and Exchange commission's clai that Bank of America Corp. deceived investor about bonuses to be paid to Merrill Lynch executives.

(James Patrick Cooper/ ) - U.S. District Judge ed Rakoff, who recently rejected a proposed $33 Million settlement that would have resolved th U.S. Securities and Exchange commission's clai that Bank of America Corp. deceived investor about bonuses to be paid to Merrill Lynch executives.

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Text SizePrintE-mailReprints By David S. Hilzenrath,

From a courtroom in Manhattan, not far from the epicenter of the nation’s financial crisis, a longtime federal judge is becoming a hero to many and a nightmare to some for demanding greater accountability in cases of alleged Wall Street fraud.

Jed S. Rakoff is driving regulators nuts by refusing to rubber-stamp the kind of deals that have long defined Securities and Exchange Commission justice — boilerplate settlements in which companies use shareholders’ money to pay fines while they neither admit nor deny doing anything wrong. The latest example called for Citigroup to pay $285 million for alleged misconduct during the mortgage meltdown.

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The potential impact of Rakoff’s stand goes beyond the financial arena to other industries and regulators that rely on negotiated settlements.

“This is Jed Rakoff against the world,” said Joel Seligman, a scholar of securities law.

The dispute seemed to take on a more personal edge over the holidays, when Rakoff accused the SEC of blindsiding him during legal maneuvers. And the battle lines became sharper this month when the Business Roundtable, a major corporate lobby, weighed in on the side of the SEC in its quest to see Rakoff’s ruling in the Citigroup case overturned.

The judge’s fans — and how many judges have fans? — see him as the rare authority trying to impose Wall Street penalties that fit the offense. Rakoff for president, some say.

Critics — some with a stake in business as usual — see him as a headline-chaser who could end up undermining his own agenda by forcing the SEC to actually win its cases.

“Novel” and “potentially dangerous,” the Business Roundtable said of his position.

Largely lost in the din are deeper truths about the man who, for better or worse, could singlehandedly force a revolution in the way the government polices Corporate America.

First, far from being an outsider to the world of white-collar enforcement, Rakoff, 68, is part of an old boys’ (and girls’) network that dominates Wall Street justice.

Earlier in his career, as a Justice Department prosecutor and then a white-collar defense lawyer, Rakoff worked closely with the SEC. Decades ago, he was even interviewed by an SEC chairman for the job of SEC enforcement director. Someone else got the job. Rakoff said he had not applied for the position and pursued it with only half-hearted interest, partly because of the financial trade-off it would entail.

Second, Rakoff isn’t just calling for Wall Street to be held accountable. He’s also insisting that the government be held accountable when it uses its power to make accusations and exact penalties. Law enforcement, he argues, should be more than a government shakedown.

“An application of judicial power that does not rest on facts is worse than mindless, it is inherently dangerous,” he wrote. “If its deployment does not rest on facts — cold, hard, solid facts, established either by admissions or by trials — it serves no lawful or moral purpose and is simply an engine of oppression.”

The SEC complains that Rakoff would require it to spend more time and money on trials, thereby reducing the number of cases it can pursue. But there’s another dimension. By insisting on proof — not just by tying up resources — Rakoff could well deter regulators from taking some enforcement actions.

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