Fraud: The Case Of Sacco And Vanzetti

Chapter 11, Saco and Vanzetti, in After the Fact begins with a story of an armed robbery in a bank and an armed robbery and murder to a man on the side of the road in Massachusetts during the time of the nativist mood in America. The Braintree and Bridgewater crimes, in 1919 and 1920, seemed to show a patterned and drew attention to Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti. Sacco and Vanzetti, two Italian anarchists, where were soon arrested for the crimes. After a long trial, suspicious evidence and six years of appeals the two were convicted and sentenced to the electric chair. Moving on in the chapter we are introduced to another story, around the same time as the previous one, of employers going on strike and radicals creating an uprising in the labor industries.

On April 15, 1920, the Slater and Morrill Shoe Company in Braintree, Massachusetts, fell victim to an armed robbery. According to Louis Stark’s article “Are Sacco and Vanzetti Really Guilty,” “...two men shot and killed a paymaster and his guard carrying $15,700”(Stark 1). According to witnesses these men were middle-aged Italian immigrants and possessed 32-caliber automatic handguns(1). As eye-witnesses were

A notable incident of scapegoating from the U.S. is the Sacco and Vanzetti trials in the 1920s. In 1920, two men were killed in Boston and the suspects were described as Italian men. Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti, both Italian anarchists, were accused of the murders and sentenced to death. Although there was little evidence against these two men, during the time period there was a stigma surrounding Italians in Boston, and also a negative view of anarchists. Soon before the men were to be killed, another man and his gang confessed to the killings, however, the judge dismissed these confessions and kept the verdict. This case drew worldwide recognition and sparked protests throughout cities across the world. The two men were eventually killed on August 23, 1927. However, before the killing, Vanzetti spoke to the judge of the trial, and the speech was later published into a short story titled, “This is Our Triumph.” Vanzetti spoke, “We have proved that there could not have been another judge on the face of this earth more prejudiced and more cruel than you(the presiding judge) have been against us… Before you see us you already know that we were radicals, that we were underdogs, that we were the enemy of this institution” (Landau). This court decision scapegoated Sacco and Vanzetti because they were easy targets and people disliked their political views. However, Vanzetti revealed the flaws in the system, saying that he was targeted because he had radical views and even before the evidence was shown, he was an underdog. After Vanzetti gave this speech people began to realize he was completely innocent, but the city of Boston used him as a scapegoat for the murders because he was easy to blame. This reveals the flaws, both in the criminal justice system and the prejudice many societies have against a group of

By 1920, the Puritan legacy, the cant of nativist racists, the economic wars, World War One, the crime wave, and the Red Scare had conditioned the American people to fear and despise certain groups. These groups usually included eastern and southern Europeans. The arrest and trial of Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti was fixated more on the battle between Anarchy and American traditions rather than the actual evidence the prosecution presented. The Red Scare played a massive part in this. The Sacco and Vanzetti case reflects the fears of immigration, immigrant crime and anarchy.

On April 15th, 1920, in South Braintree, Massachusetts after a paymaster and a security guard who were carrying $15,000 for a shoe company were shot and killed in cold blood by two men in a car. The two men took the 15,000 and fled. The polices attention was directed towards Sacco and Vanzetti as their prime suspects because Sacco had the same type of gun used in the killing and Sacco and Vanzetti had been seen

The great american melting pot of the industrial age was reaching its boiling point. Slums were overcrowded and the factory workers were just replaceable parts of a commercial machine that kept wages low and revenue high. Any uncooperative worker was replaceable at an even lower cost due to the heavy flow of migrants to the United States. These poor newcomers worked at any rate, which put many Americans out of jobs. The unemployed were angry and upset that they had been replaced by immigrant workers, and it became apparent in hate crimes, political parties such as the nativists, race riots, and police brutality. One day in Braintree, Massachusetts, two italian immigrants, Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti, were arrested for an armed robbery of a shoe factory with two deaths (Kronenwetter). The two men claimed that they were innocent, yet the prosecution accused them relentlessly. Of the 33 eyewitnesses brought to the stand during the length of the trial, only seven people identified sacco, and four recognized Vanzetti. Every person that claimed to see sacco said he was wearing something different. The prosecution brought 16 men who thought they recognized sacco, but only 7 really did. They also brought 4 men that recognized Vanzetti, but they were very weak,

Sacco had taken a day off from his job at the shoe factory. The alibi was supported by the Italian consulate in Boston (Frankfurter). Bartolomeo who was a fish peddler had said he was selling fish on the day of the murder and his alibi was supported by thirteen witnesses who he had sold fish to. The witnesses who claimed that the men in the car who shot the paymaster and his guard were Sacco and Vanzetti but their testimonies were unreliable and did not prove the accusation against the two men. All that was known about the suspects were that they were two Italian men. Judge Thayer gave up the identification of the men in the van but still announced the two to be guilty. At the height of the public’s outrage, the Judge publicly stated this, “This man [Vanzetti], although he may not actually have committed the crime attributed to him, is nevertheless morally culpable because he is an enemy of our existing institutions… The defendant’s ideals are cognate with crime” (Boyer 668). By saying these things, Judge Thayer openly admitted his bias against the Italians, simply because they were radicals. Thayer also supported his conviction by claiming that Sacco and Vanzetti had acted guilty during their interrogation. However, their behavior was most likely due to the fact they spoke very poor English and misinterpreted many of the questions (Frankfurter). The public demanded a new trial for the case, which the Judge adamantly

In South Braintree, Massachusetts, two men were tried and convicted of a crime because of their ethnic background. A robbery at the Slater-Morrill Shoe Factory had taken place. As the payroll distributors were exiting, two men attacked them, snatching a box containing the money. The men leaving the factory were both shot and killed, while the two attackers escaped in a getaway car. The two suspected attackers, Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti, faced discrimination inside and out of the courts. In the end, both even faced the deadly electric chair. To this day, it is undetermined who the robbers are. However, many factors prevented Sacco and Vanzetti from getting a fair trial. Injustice within the courts, panic during the Red Scare, and

The case of Sacco and Vanzetti sparked a national outcry for justice as well as a national debate over American values. Two Italian immigrants, shoe operative Nicola Sacco and fish peddler Bartolomeo Vanzetti, were falsely accused robbing Braintree’s Slater and Morrill Shoe Company and murdering two of the factory’s workers (After the Fact 256). At the time of the Braintree holdup, the police were investigating a similar crime in Bridgewater. In both cases a gang was involved, and the suspects escaped in a car. Eyewitnesses believed the criminals to be Italians. So, when Sacco and Vanzetti appeared at a parking garage near Braintree and drove off in a car police suspected was getaway vehicle in both crimes, Sacco and Vanzetti were arrested

Both men supported anarchist groups that promoted warfare against the government. Sacco and Vanzetti received an unfair trial because of their radical political views, tainted witnesses in court, and denial of a new trial. Nicola Sacco was born in Torremaggiore, Italy, in 1891. Sacco was sixteen when he moved to the United States. When he immigrated, he worked whatever

“Known anarchists during the Red Scare that followed the Russian Revolution and Italian immigrants during an era of rampant xenophobia, Sacco and Vanzetti were convenient scapegoats”(Finkel 1). This quote is from the article written by Finkel it discusses how the case has been looked over again. Sacco and Vanzetti were italian immigrants and known anarchists that were convicted for the crime of a paymaster and his guard. Rampant xenophobia is defined as an irrational fear against foreigners. Since america was in the mindset of xenophobia it was easy to blame Sacco and Vanzetti for the crime. The trial was effected by the mindset of america, the whole process was unjust, there also is no answer to if Sacco and Vanzetti were guilty or not, and

Nicola owned a .32 caliber colt automatic, he used it for safety reasons when working at a factory that made him work before sunrise. Sacco had a companion named Bartolomeo Vanzetti who together, fled to Mexico City before w.w.1 broke out because of the fear of getting drafted. After awhile they returned and both men were arrested at a garage after trying to pick up a car that police said was connected to the South Braintree murder. On July 4,1921, they were convicted and sentenced to death. Now began the investigation and trial of the

This research paper will explore the fraud at Tyco and focus primarily on accounting and auditing issues related to the fraud. One thing worth noting about this case is that fraudulent financial reporting was not at the core of the fraud, which was the case with majority other big frauds at the time, such as Enron and Waste Management. On the contrary, fraud consisted of misappropriation of assets, and fraudulent financial reporting came as a consequence of trying to hide misappropriation of assets and the use of corporate money for personal benefit.

The perfect fraud storm occurred between the years 2000 and 2002 involving two of the largest energy and telecom corporations in the United States: Enron and WorldCom. It was determined that both organizations fraudulently overstated assets, created assets from expenses or overstated revenues, costing investors billions of dollars and resulting in both organizations declaring bankruptcy (Albrecht, Albrecht, Albrecht & Zimbelman, 2012). Nine factors contributed to fraud triangle creating this perfect fraud storm, and assisting management in concealing the fraud until exposed and rectified.

A business can not work out without an account system, which includes internal. Internal controls are used by companies to make sure financial information is accurate and valid. Strong internal controls are signs of a financially healthy company and protect the company’s integrity. Strong internal controls can also increase a company’s profitability. There are several types of internal controls that companies used to protect themselves such as: Segregation of duties, asset purchases, supervisor review, internal audits and adequate documents and records. This paper will discuss several topics from a case study about And the Fraud