The hammer finally came down on Ivan Boesky on this day in 1987, as Federal Judge Morris E. Lasker sentenced the once-mighty arbitrageur to a three-year prison term.
Boesky, who had been one of the wealthiest and most-powerful players on Wall Street, was found guilty of insider trading, as well as a series of sizable but shady transactions -- crimes that constituted what The Wall Street Journal deemed the "largest scandal in Wall Street's history."
While Lasker chided Boesky for committing offenses "of the highest seriousness," the arbitrageur cushioned his fall by agreeing to implicate other firms and figures suspected of securities crimes. The result was a relatively lenient ruling that raised a number of eyebrows.
A share of the criticism was directed at Rudolph Giuliani, the U.S. District Attorney for Southern New York, who was accused of using the insider trading scandals as a vehicle to forward his political ambitions.
The high-profile Wall Street convictions certainly didn't hurt Giuliani's career, as the D.A rode his newfound status as a hard-driving crime fighter to become mayor of New York City.
As for Boesky, the fallen arbitrageur ended up serving two years of his prison term and handed over $100 million in fines.
Source: History.com
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