THE INVESTIGATION

New Yorker, The, April, 2003 by John Cassidy

Toward the end of 2000, Eric Dinallo, the head of the investor-protection bureau in the New York State Attorney General's office, was talking with his father, Greg Dinallo, a novelist, about the stock market. Investors had already lost billions of dollars, and Greg, who had written episodes of "Quincy, M.E."and "The Six Million Dollar Man"before turning to thrillers, was complaining about Wall Street analysts who kept "buy"recommendations on technology and Internet stocks even though so many of them were plummeting. "When analysts recommend these stocks, what is their interest in it?"he asked. Eric, an athletic thirty-nine-year-old, with short, spiked gray hair, thought this was a good question. The investor-protection bureau existed to protect the interests of ordinary...