James captures revealing and intimate conversations with the four siblings and their parents - including the mother who didn't want her husband to go into banking.Īs the Sungs discuss strategy, food, and favorite movies, the film makes a compelling argument that no matter how the trial ends, targeting Abacus was an absurdly inappropriate substitute for prosecuting the behemoths who caused the 2008 debacle. After the indictment, two other sisters rallied to the cause. Much of the movie, however, is concerned less with the trial than the Sung family. Her recollections keep the narrative taut until what, in Frank Capra's day, was termed the final reel. He paired that with audio reenactments based on the trial transcript.Ĭinematically, the most important piece of the legal story is a juror who was inclined to vote guilty. Unable to cover the trial with cameras or recording equipment, the director sent a courtroom illustrator to capture some of the action. If they're not quite so sympathetic as the Sungs, that begins with an astounding miscalculation: After indicting the Abacus employees, authorities chained them together and paraded them for a photo-op that even Vance calls "very unfortunate." Yet he's careful to present the government's case, and to include interviews with the DA, Cyrus Vance Jr., and the lead prosecutor, Polly Greenberg. James was introduced to the story by a friend of the Sungs, and spent most of his time with the family. Yu became the chief witness for the prosecution, and the trial process lasted five years. They reported their suspicions to banking regulators, and were rewarded with the indictments. Thomas Sung even once halted a bank run with the aplomb of James Stewart's George Bailey.Ībacus' managers did eventually learn of Yu's activities, and fired him and two others. Shanghai-born but all-American, Thomas Sung is a devotee of It's a Wonderful Life, an affection James could hardly help but exploit.
That includes Jill Sung and Vera Sung, the English-speaking, Connecticut-raised sisters who had inherited day-to-day operations from their father, one of the bank's founders. Also, Yu spoke a dialect that even most of his fellow Abacus employees didn't understand. His activities were hard to track, because, as the film explains, Chinatown residents are more likely to make cash transactions than the average American consumer. The problem was a loan officer, Ken Yu, who asked borrowers for bribes and falsified income statements for mortgage applications. In fact, the bank had one of the lowest default rates in the country. The Chinatown-based bank also didn't package its mortgages into the sort of financial instruments that made The Big Short's machinations so arcane. This event is co-sponsored by Brooklyn Law School’s Asian-Pacific American Law Students Association (APALSA).As it happens, Abacus didn't deal in subprime.
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This film is available for download from Amazon and iTunes. Sung will be joined by his daughters Vera Sung, Esq., who sits on the board of directors for Abacus, Jill Sung, Esq., the bank’s president and CEO, and Chanterelle Sung, Esq., who was working in the Manhattan District Attorney's office at the time of the indictment. The indictment and subsequent trial forced the Sung family to defend themselves – and their bank’s legacy in the Chinatown community – over the course of a five-year legal battle. bank to face criminal charges in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis. The film portrays the incredible saga of the Sung family and the community bank they own and operate in New York’s Chinatown.Īccused of mortgage fraud, Abacus was the only U.S. Join us for a discussion with Dean Nick Allard and Thomas Sung ’64, Founder and Chairman of Abacus Federal Savings Bank, subject of the Oscar-nominated documentary Abacus: Small Enough to Jail.
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