As you may have heard, the last number of months have been a bit tough on hedge fund manager Steve Cohen. In November, one of his former employees, Mathew Martoma, was accused of orchestrating "the most lucrative insider trading scheme ever," in a criminal complaint in which Cohen was referenced as Portfolio Manager A. A week later, the Times lopped 21,000 square feet off his house. Earlier this month, he had the pleasure of setting the record for the largest insider trading fine ever, at $614 million, a sum that does not even put this whole thing behind him, as the settlement "doesn't preclude the Securities and Exchange Commission from pursuing Cohen himself in the future." So you'll excuse the Big Guy if he felt the need to indulge in a little retail therapy recently.

December 7, 1941. November 22, 1963. December 4, 2009. All dates of such historical and cultural significance that if you asked someone where they were that day, they'd surely be able to tell you. Because they weren't just any old days; they were moments when everything changed. The bombing of Pearl Harbor; the assassination of JFK; and, perhaps most importantly, the firing of Jeffrey Gundlach from the TWC Group, which had taken issue with his decision to start his own firm, and choose to express that anger by first escorting him out of the building and second raiding his offices, where they found an amount of adult films and sexual devices that suggested Gundlach was operating an online wholesale sex shop distributor and keeping the inventory at work. TCW also sued its former employee and at the time, rather than roll over and take it which is something he would never do, Gundlach vowed to fight back and clear up the misconception that TCW was the victim in the situation. On the contrary, JG told people, the real victim was US taxpayers who were "promised" Gundlach's services and had to settled for a subpar bond manager when his relationship with the firm was terminated. Gundlach ultimately emerged victorious* and perhaps even more satisfying to The Pope was the number of TCW employees and clients who followed him en masse to his new company, the aptly named DoubleLine Capital. We're not sure how you celebrated last night's hugely significant anniversary, but we do know how Gundlach did:

A year or so a go, commodities trader Vincent McCrudden was arrested for some things he put on a company website and some emails he sent out. The former involved an "execution" list containing the names of a handful of financial regulators, which he asked readers to aid him in crossing off ("I need your help," he wrote. "There are just too many for me alone"). The latter included an email to a CFTC staffer that noted: “You fucking corrupt piece of shit! I have let so many of you fucking corrupt mother fuckers off the hook for doing this to my life. You my friend are not getting away with this. I am going to do this my way now and you, you corrupt mother fucking piece of shit are the first on my list! laugh mother fucker…I am going to make you a test case!” To that end, the chief operating officer of the NFA was told, “It wasn’t ever a question of ‘if’ I was going to kill you, it was just of when." Were these emails particularly colorful? Yes. Should anyone who received them (or had their name placed on The List) been actually worried about losing his/her life? McCrudden could see how maybe things might have been interpretted that way, but no. As he told a judge, “I wrote provocative language on my website that could have been perceived as threatening. I would never intentionally hurt or cause bodily harm to another human being." And yet, this is still happening: Vincent P. McCrudden, a former New York commodities trader, was sentenced to two years and four months in prison for threatening to kill federal financial regulators. McCrudden, 51, who pleaded guilty last year, was sentenced today by U.S. District Judge Denis R. Hurley in federal court in Central Islip, New York...McCrudden said he was being persecuted for fighting back against unfair regulatory actions that destroyed his career. In addition to trading commodities, he ran his own hedge funds...McCrudden’s legal and regulatory entanglements began in 2000, when he was criminally charged with masking shortfalls in statements to his hedge-fund investors. The government said he included in his results money he expected to get from a lawsuit after Sumitomo Corp. (8053) was accused of manipulating the copper market. Ex-Trader McCrudden Gets 28 Months in Prison for Threats [Bloomberg]

Yesterday, the Wall Street Journal ran a front page story reporting that the Securities and Exchange Commission had "blown" the cover of whistleblower Peter C. Earle. The article claimed that Earle, a former employee of Pipeline Trading Systems turned government informant, had his identity "inadvertently" revealed through a "gaffe" on the part of an SEC lawyer, who showed a Pipeline exec "a notebook from the whistleblower filled with jottings about trades, calls and meetings." The executive was said to have recognized Earle's handwriting and told his colleagues, who had previously suspected but did not know for sure that "Pete's the whistleblower." The story was easy to believe because if you've been keeping up with the SEC over the last number of years, you know that this sound exactly like something they'd accidentally do. Except that whereas the regulator fully copped to, for example, missing Madoff while trying to access ladyboyjuice.com 385 times/day, it says that this accusation? Is bull shit. It did not "inadvertently" "blow" anyone. Here's its strongly worded letter to the Journal saying as much: The Securities and Exchange Commission in no way exposed Peter Earle as a whistleblower, and our use of his notebooks in an investigative deposition was neither "inadvertent" nor a "breach" or "gaffe" ("Source's Cover Blown by SEC," Page One, April 25). It was a deliberate decision, which SEC lawyer Daniel Walfish discussed in advance with his supervisor, who was present for the deposition in which the notebooks were exhibited. Nor did the fully authorized use of the notebooks in any way compromise Mr. Earle or the integrity of the SEC's investigation of the Pipeline Trading Systems matter. Although it was widely known among executives of Pipeline and Milstream Strategy Group that Mr. Earle had approached the SEC after he was terminated from Milstream—a fact volunteered by several witnesses and acknowledged by Mr. Earle long before any use of his notebooks—the SEC declined to confirm his identity and still treated his status as a cooperating witness as confidential. The SEC made sure to obtain all of the notes of the approximately six Milstream traders, and in the SEC's deposition of Gordon Henderson (the supervisor of Mr. Earle and the other traders), the SEC used other traders' notes along with those of Mr. Earle. The use of these traders' notes—highly relevant evidence prepared in the ordinary course of their work at Milstream—in no way revealed whether Mr. Earle or any other trader was or was not cooperating with the SEC. George S. Canellos Director New York Regional Office U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission New York SEC Did Not Blow Source's Cover [WSJ] Earlier: SEC Burns Whistleblower In The Most SEC Way Possible

As you may have heard, at some point last week, bond manager Jeffrey Gundlach was robbed. Thieves took $10 million worth of stuff from the Doubleline founder's Santa Monica pad, including a couple of paintings, a few watches, some high-priced wine, a 2010 Porsche Carrera 4S, and whatever cash was lying around. While it's unclear if the burglars made away with Gundlach's collection of priceless pornographic films and sexual apparatus; if he was targeted specifically because the thieves knew they could get their hands on the original copy of Dr. Fellatio 16; or if they were tipped off by JG's regular pizza delivery guy, cable repairman, or pool boy, what is clear that Gundlach is pissed, pissed like a man who is no longer in possession of Ass Traffic Volume 2: The Director's Cut.  And that's where you come in. Mr Gundlach has reportedly offered a $100,000 reward for the return of his property. $1,000 is also being offered for information leading to the arrest and conviction of those who carried out the raid, according to Santa Monica police. And to the burglars, if you're reading this, Gundlach will see your asses in court (the real kind, unless you want to settle this in Bondage Nookie Court in which case, get in touch with this lawyer). Multimillionaire financier victim of $10-million heist [LA Times] Thieves snatch $10million haul of fine art, jewellery and a Porsche from home of wealthy banker dubbed the 'Bond God' [DM] Related (...?): Jeffrey Gundlach NOT Set Up By TCW, Big Fan Of “Dr. Fellatio” Series