NEW YORK — Attempts to place blame for the great financial crisis that sent the economy into a nose dive last year have made household names of top executives such as Angelo R. Mozilo, Richard Fuld and Maurice "Hank" Greenberg.
But the only major criminal case to emerge thus far from the global cataclysm involves two lesser-known hedge fund managers who will be thrust into the spotlight today when their trial begins with jury selection in a Brooklyn courtroom.
Federal prosecutors allege that former Bear Stearns Cos. fund managers Ralph Cioffi and Matthew Tannin -- in a frantic, eventually unsuccessful scramble in mid-2007 to keep their mortgage bond funds from collapsing -- misled investors about the deepening woes in the portfolios.
"Rightly or wrongly, they've become the poster children for all of the alleged misconduct on Wall Street that led to the economic meltdown," said Robert Mintz, a former federal prosecutor now in private practice in New Jersey.
Well before the startling demise 13 months ago of Lehman Bros. Holdings Inc., led by Fuld, the failure of the Bear Stearns funds was among the first dominoes to fall in the epic mortgage meltdown.
Bear, one of Wall Street's five leading investment banks, played a major role in the subprime mortgage mania that turned into a meltdown, leading to the global financial crisis. Bear turned subprime loans into securities that were gobbled up by investors -- including its own ill-fated funds.
The two funds spit out steady profits until the subprime market began cracking in early 2007. The collapse of the funds in July 2007 cost investors $1.4 billion and helped spark the demise of Bear Stearns, which was later sold at a fire-sale price to JPMorgan Chase & Co. in a deal arranged by the government.
The funds' implosion sent shudders through Wall Street as investors suddenly questioned whether time bombs were lurking at other investment banks.
"Lehman was the second shoe to drop," said Frank Partnoy, a professor at the University of San Diego School of Law. "Bear Stearns was the first."
To be sure, the boldface names of Wall Street still could be charged criminally.
The FBI is investigating Calabasas-based Countrywide Financial Corp., which Mozilo ran before it was sold last year to Bank of America Corp.
Federal authorities reportedly have subpoenaed Fuld as part of a probe into Lehman, where he was chief executive. And Greenberg, who ran the now widely reviled insurer American International Group Inc., reportedly is under criminal investigation.
