Trader Won't Be SocGen's 'Scapegoat'

Jerome Kerviel will not “be made a scapegoat” for the huge losses at Société Générale, he told AFP today in his first public comments since his trading scheme was discovered. Kerviel said he had been “designated” as the sole wrongdoer by the French bank, which he claims turned a blind eye so long as he was making profits.

Kerviel also criticized media reports on his mental condition, saying, "I am neither suicidal nor depressive." The 31-year-old said he is "saving his statements for the judges," but said he had just gotten “carried away” in his efforts to perform well at SocGen: "You lose sense of the sums involved when you are in this kind of work." (More Jérôme Kerviel stories.)