Much to the chagrin of U.S. Attorney Mary Beth Buchanan who had been investigating executives at Mellon to assess their culpability in the illegal destruction of some 80,000 tax return documents in 2001.

Six Mellon employees are awaiting trial on conspiracy charges (Lee Harvey Oswald-level patsies, no doubt) and while Buchanan has agreed, as per terms of a settlement with Mellon not to prosecute Mellon execs at this time, she's not done shaking the tree:

"Somebody within Mellon directed the employees to destroy those tax documents," Buchanan said. "We want to know, How high within the corporation did this knowledge go?"

More here on the settlement terms and potential consequences for Mellon, should Buchanan's continued efforts turn up a white collar at Mellon that she can, well, collar.

-- MDT