Report: Feds Probing Two Cassano Deputies | Talking Points Memo

CBS News has some new developments in the criminal probe into AIG…

We knew that Joe Cassano, the former head of AIG’s Financial Products unit, was in investigators’ crosshairs for potentially giving misleading public statements about AIGFP’s position. But the network now reports that the Justice Department is also looking closely at two of his deputies — Andrew Forster, an executive vice president, and Thomas Athan, a managing director — for the same reason.And, we had previously known that a December 2007 presentation, at which Cassano and other execs assured investors that the firm had prudently hedged its exposure to the sub-prime market, was a focus of the probe. But now we learn that investigators are also zeroing in on two related public statements — AIG’s third quarter report for 2007, put out in November of that year, and a detailed press release, put out the same day. Both put AIGFP’s third quarter losses on its credit default swaps at $352 million, but estimated that that figure had risen to $550 million as of the end of October. By the end of the year, the losses had in fact skyrocketed to $11.5 billion. (CBS’s apparent belief that the two documents give different figures looks to be a mistake.)


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