To be sure, the word fraud is thrown around a lot in civil suits. But what we’re talking about here are alleged criminal acts. In the old Warner Bros. movie, the most famous graduate of J.H.S. 45, John Garfield, would get thrown in jail for doing things that were considerably less nasty than committing a multibillion-dollar fraud in which the taxpayers were victims.

Not much has changed today. If you rob a bank or run a meth ring, you can count on being prosecuted by U.S. Attorney for the Southern District, Preet Bharara. Insider traders are treated similarly. But if instead of robbing a bank, your bank decides to rob you—then it does not seem that Mr. Bharara is very interested. Instead, his colleague Mr. Cuomo will rush into the courtroom and sue the perps—using very, very nasty words—and the former U.S. Attorney, Mary Jo White (now representing Lewis), will prepare a stirring statement of defense.

To be fair, not every civil fraud suit or SEC action alleging fraud necessarily results, or should result, in a criminal case. Prosecutors have discretion. After all, they have an obligation to temper justice with mercy and so forth, and have to carefully apportion scarce resources. Still, in this instance we have allegations of a multibillion-dollar fraud, “illegal acts” that, according to Cuomo, were perpetrated deliberately.

I don’t want to just pick on Bharara for not—yet—showing much stomach for prosecuting the big banks. The same goes for Cuomo. A New York State attorney general can indeed prosecute alleged securities transgressors in criminal court if he or she so desires, though it doesn’t happen all that often. The only instance that comes immediately to mind is two attorneys general ago in 1998, when then-Attorney General Dennis Vacco prosecuted brokers at the Monroe Parker penny-stock firm. Twelve brokers were indicted.

The result was a jury trial—and embarrassing acquittals. But at least Vacco put fraud where it belonged—in criminal court. Mind you, those were small-fry brokers, not bankers with former U.S. Attorneys representing them.

Of course, the final episode of this long-running soap opera has yet to air. It may well be that the civil cases are just a prelude to a mammoth criminal slam-bang that will make these civil suits seem like parking tickets by comparison. Or maybe that’s all there is. Whatever the case, ask yourself this question every time you read about a civil fraud suit by a regulatory agency: If these folks really did commit crimes, why aren’t they being charged with criminal acts?

Follow all the news about Bank of America, CIT, or any one of thousands of big public companies with bizWatch, Portfolio.com's unique and free aggregation service.