With his gift of remarkable gab,
Is caught in a hitch
By the SEC, which
Will take anyone it can grab.
He told an impeachable tale
In a colorf'ly worded email
Of misgivings and doubt,
Which the Feds have smoked out
Of his rashly electronic trail.
The lesson, on Wall Street (and Main),
Is most unimpeachably plain:
When engaged in deceit,
Then please be discreet,
Lest your words come to haunt you again.
Former Goldman Sachs banker Fabrice Tourre finds himself on trial in a Manhattan federal court this week, six years after he helped to put together a synthetic CDO that yielded big losses for the institutions that bought it. Investors in Abacus 2007-AC1, as the Goldman CDO was officially called, were not informed that the deal had actually been structured as a vehicle to allow hedge fund manager John Paulson to go short on the subprime mortgage market, which he correctly believed would fall. Mr. Tourre harbored similar doubts, which he confessed only in an email to his girlfriend: "The whole building is about to collapse anytime now... The only potential survivor, the fabulous Fab," adding that, in truth, he did not feel so fabulous. Mr. Tourre's former employer has paid a half-billion dollar fine without admitting wrongdoing, leaving only one indiscreet foot soldier to bear the personal responsibility for its role in the mortgage crisis.
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