Opinion: Some Really Useful Advice for Goldman Sachs

(April 21) -- Dear Goldman Sachs,

So, you've been caught cheating. You sorta committed fraud, kinda misled investors, maybe accelerated the financial collapse. Don't panic. It's going to be all right. You're going to survive.

There have been many Great Cheaters before you and I've studied them all. Here are the lessons they have to teach:

First, you need to recognize the five stages to the grief of getting caught getting rich cheating.

DENIAL: "We don't know what you're talking about and we didn't do it."
ANGER: "We said We Didn't Do It!!"
BARGAINING: "Oh, come onnnnn ..."
DEPRESSION: "We're upset you'd even think we did it."
ACCEPTANCE: "It was Geithner!"

That's right, blame others. Juiced ballplayers blame wives, trainers, nannies, agents and deals with the devil, aka Steinbrenner. Lehman's Richard Fuld said it was the media, short sellers, the government and a bank run. Enron's Ken Lay blamed everybody from co-workers to Arthur Andersen, The Wall Street Journal and a "witch hunt" ... which might explain why federal prosecutor Sean Berkowitz turned into a newt.

Consider these popular scapegoats: alcoholism, Hurricane Katrina, 9/11, child abuse, OxyContin, Sarbanes-Oxley, Osama bin Laden, the BCS.

Next, you need to win in the Court of Public Ignorance, er, Opinion. Make a teary confession praising family, faith and the flag. Change your name, a la Blackwater, Philip Morris and Diebold.

Spin this thing, just like great cheaters Nixon ("When the president does it, that means it's not illegal"), Belichick ("I misinterpreted the rules") and Eve ("The snake made me do it"). You weren't "lying bastards who profited from a secretive and unregulated market," you were "hedging your investments."

Make us like you. HealthSouth's Richard Scrushy was a regular on Birmingham TV during his criminal trial. He got solid ratings for "The Richard Scrushy Is Innocent Hour." Why not rent Fox News for a month?

Also, get ahead of the news and investigate yourself, just like Apple, Merck, Charles Rangel, the College Board, Hewlett-Packard, Major League Baseball and the Women's Tennis Association. It's like getting pulled over and, when the officer asks, "Any idea how fast your were going?" you just reply, "No, but I'll look into it. Thanks."

As the trial approaches, destroy the evidence. Like Arthur Andersen's Shredder Department and the CIA's Bureau of Videotape Smashing, you, too, should "accidentally" getting rid of anything incriminating.

And spare no expense on your defense. Hire the slickest legal minds, the dirtiest private investigators, the most-soulless of publicists. You already have Greg Craig on board, so you're off to a good start there.

If, somehow, you go to trial, consider it an opportunity to prove your mettle. It's one thing to trick investors, rating agencies, governments and the market; it's quite another to fool a judge you haven't yet bribed.

Here, then, are the brilliant, imaginative and real legal arguments put forward by Great Cheaters.

• WorldCom CEO Bernie Ebbers' claimed not to know what was going on -- the "Ah, shucks" defense pioneered in the 1956 case of Wally v. The Beaver.
• Attorneys for another corporate cheater labeled an opposition witness a "greedy coward acting purely in self-interest."
• Enron CEO Jeff Skilling said under oath that when he wrote in an e-mail, "Shred the documents, they're on to us," he was "just being sarcastic." Use that.

Finally, Goldman, you have three options of last resort. 1) Fake your own death. 2) Buy yourself a presidential pardon. Or, 3) Think outside the box: You cheated yourself billions. ... Are you telling me you can't afford a clone?

For more cheating advice, you know how to reach me, and I know what you can afford.

Fraudulently yours,

Jeff

Jeff Kreisler is an award-winning comedian and author of HarperCollins' "Get Rich Cheating." You can learn more about him at JeffKreisler.com.