Time Magazine to Feature Prosecutor Who Won First Criminal Guilty Pleas in Mortgage Meltdown

Preet Bharara, the U.S Attorney for the Southern District of New York whose insider-trading probe led to the first criminal case against Wall Street in relation to the mortgage meltdown this week, will appear on Friday’s cover of Time magazine.

The distinction comes just two days after two former Credit Suisse Group employees pleaded guilty to criminal charges of conspiracy to invent inflated values for mortgage bonds during the financial crisis, the Wall Street Journal Law Blog reports.

Bharara’s investigation of Wall Street kicked into high hear in Novembar 2009 when he obtained a secret court order to join a conference call in which inside information was being traded.

“Significant officials at publicly traded companies are casually and cavalierly engaged in insider trading,” Bharara said last week, according to the law blog. “Because insider trading has as one of its elements communication, it doesn’t take rocket science to realize it’s nice to have the communication on tape.”