(Newser)
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Jon Corzine may not be in legal hot water just yet over MF Global's missing money, but the temperature's definitely getting warmer thanks to a newly surfaced email. It shows that the former CEO ordered the transfer of $200 million from a fund with customer cash to cover a shortfall at one of MF Global's bank accounts with JP Morgan Chase, reports the Washington Post. The transfer came just days before MF Global's collapse and was made by assistant treasurer Edith O'Brien "PER JC's direct instructions," she wrote in the email. It could be damning if investigators can prove that Corzine used customer funds, as opposed to company funds, to try to shore up MF Global's problems.
One complicating factor, explains the Wall Street Journal, is that the fund where the $200 million came from contained both kinds of money, and Corzine might be able to make the case that in those chaotic final days, he didn't know the company funds had been tapped dry. His lawyer reiterated yesterday that Corzine "never directed Ms. O'Brien or anyone else regarding which account should be used to cure the overdrafts, and he never directed that customer funds should be used for that purpose." O'Brien herself testifies on Capitol Hill Wednesday to theoretically shed some light on the issue, though she is expected to take the Fifth.
