Prosecutors chose to target a lone functionary rather than executives

Evidence

Fabrice Tourre of Goldman Sachs was the lone trader whom the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) sued for selling bad mortgage securities (Story

& Morgenson, 2011b). Tourre was convicted of civil fraud.

— Albert Bandura, Moral Disengagement, 1498

Categorization

• ADDENDUM: The scapegoating-of-the-lone-functionary pattern echoes the broader dynamic of individuals bearing blame for systemic wrongdoing — relevant to the argument structure of my sacrifice piece on blaming individuals for structural outcomes.
• corroborated: 2 independent passages support this claim — Albert Bandura, Moral Disengagement: How People Do Harm…, 1498