Economic historians debate the causes of the Great Depression — from the gold standard to the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act — but few assign much blame to criminal fraud.
People saw it differently at the time. When bank failures crippled Chicago in 1933, local prosecutors hunted for guilty parties. They indicted hotel and insurance magnate Ernest Stevens for fraud and embezzlement in connection with his company's defaulted bonds. He was convicted and sentenced to 10 years.
The Illinois Supreme Court overturned the conviction a year later, finding that the state had criminalized what was really desperate but non-felonious financial juggling. "In this whole record, there is not a scintilla of evidence of any concealment or fraud attempted," the court wrote.