Prosecutors have been targeting Cohen in their sweeping crackdown on insider trading. Yet as a deterrent against future crimes, Steinberg’s conviction — like scores of others in the past several years — is even more valuable. Conventional wisdom holds that landing the big fish in high-profile white collar cases is the best deterrent against other people breaking the same laws. Yet for would-be criminals, the arrest of a colleague or a peer at another fund has a more personal, harrowing effect than the takedown of a less-relatable outlier like Cohen.
via To police Wall Street, go after the little guys — The Great Debate
