1. A messed up culture of rewarded risk taking and management turning a blind eye, turning on their own people when things go wrong in this cut-throat environment; in this sense this guy didn't do anything special and could certainly be seen as a scapegoat
2. A guy who went far beyond these tacitly approved rules of engagement, while being well aware of the game [1]:
- he spent 5 years in compliance when he started his career, so he was not ignorant of ANY of this nor can he claim he was
- he exceeded his authority dramatically and his actions were purposely designed to conceal his behaviour (no doubt advantaged by his compliance experience); it took him 2 years to blow up after becoming a trader, the only reason he pushed so hard was greed
- "skeptics" say the bank's story doesn't make sense and bank management must have been complicit but the accused himself has not defended himself in this way other than to pretty much acknowledge everything
- everybody describes him as pretty much average, is it that hard to believe a greedy young man just plain screwed up?
This is kind of like saying Lance Armstrong should keep his titles, money and receive no fines because everybody else was cheating and he was just one of the guys that was caught. I don't agree with that logic.