Ex-SAC Capital PM Mike Steinberg seemed pretty surprised when he was found guilty of insider trading.
Ms. Williams recalled the day when Michael S. Steinberg, a portfolio manager at the hedge fund SAC Capital Advisors, was brought before a Manhattan judge to be read the insider trading charges against him. The police escorted him, in handcuffs, into the Lower Manhattan courthouse through the main elevators rather than the usual back way leading into the courtroom. When Mr. Steinberg emerged from the main elevators, there was a look of utter shock on his face. “Being caught is so out of their wildest dreams,” she said.
Danielle Chiesi was a vision in pink.
The Wall Street soap opera witnessed by Ms. Williams over the years has been filled with a colorful cast of defendants, including beauty queens, domestic divas and presumed upstanding community leaders. Consider Danielle Chiesi, an analyst who was caught on tape by the F.B.I. passing on illegal tips to Mr. Rajaratnam. “Being in her presence is memorable,” Ms. Williams said, recalling the former beauty queen’s pink silk sleeveless dress, matching pink pumps and pearls that she wore on the day of her sentencing. “It was so out of place for court.” Ms. Chiesi is best remembered for comparing the feeling of passing on illegal information to an orgasm. “It’s mentally fabulous,” she later said.
Lloyd Blankfein is the kind of guy you just want to squeeze and cuddle and put in your back pocket so you can take him home.
Then there are scenes that never make it into the papers or onto a canvas. Etched in Ms. Williams’s memory is the testimony of Lloyd C. Blankfein, the chief executive of Goldman, at Mr. Gupta’s trial. He was funny and engaging, captivating the jury with his charisma, she recalled, but he was also maddeningly difficult to draw because he never stopped moving. During part of his testimony, he played with a rubber band, rolling it around his fingers, until he noticed Ms. Williams drawing him. He smiled and stopped.
Capturing on Canvas the Downfall of Wall Street’s Criminals [Dealbook]
