Details of what went on inside the courtroom have begun to emerge. The US authorites are obviously gutted to have seen more Wall Streeters escape their clutches. So what happened? Here are a couple of rather revealing extracts which show how the boys’ cast-iron defence saw off the nasty regulators:

Aram Hong, a juror from Woodside, Queens, said the exchanges between Cioffi and Tannin shown to the jury proved to her that the two men were working “24-7” to save the funds in the months before they collapsed. She noted a defense exhibit that showed the fund managers were working at 4 a.m.

“If this was really a fraud case, they wouldn’t have worked that hard,” said Hong, 27, a food and beverage director at the Iroquois Hotel in midtown Manhattan, adding that she would invest with the two men if she had the money.

It’s that last comment (bolded for your ease of reference) that has got US bloggers speculating. The logic goes, (Dealbreaker) “if Tannin and Cioffi should lower their minimum investment ($50 million with a 10 year lockup) for the jurors who let them off (throw in the prosecution as well cause, this was a team effort). It’d be a nice show of thanks, and the SEC would love it.” Well, they can’t do any worse than before so why not.

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