Gary Weiss

Gary Weiss is an investigative journalist and author of Born to Steal and Wall Street Versus America. Both books critically examine the ethics and morality of Wall Street.

Education and early career

Weiss grew up in New York City and attended public schools, including the Bronx High School of Science. He received degrees from the City College of New York and the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University. He worked for news organizations in Connecticut and Washington D.C., and Barron's magazine, before joining Business Week magazine in 1986.

Magazine articles

Between 1986 and 2004 Weiss wrote numerous investigative articles for Business Week, including cover stories on the dangers of the Internet, as well as stock fraud and improprieties by brokerages large and small. His articles described widespread improper trading at the American Stock Exchange and broke the story of the bond trading scandal at Salomon Brothers in 1991.

Weiss also wrote numerous essays and articles critical of the Securities and Exchange Commission and other regulators, a theme he later explored in Wall Street Versus America.

Weiss is probably best known for the cover story "The Mob on Wall Street," published in December 1996, which described how New York's organized crime families had infiltrated brokerage firms in New York and Florida. The article named the firms and crime figures involved, and described how they defrauded thousands of investors around the country.[1] This groundbreaking story preceded by almost four years the widely publicized June 2000 arrest of 120 Mafia figures for stock fraud. [2]

Weiss's "Mob on Wall Street" and other Business Week stories were praised by then-FBI Director Louis Freeh, in a letter published by Business Week in December 2000.[3] Freeh said "Gary Weiss has done our nation an invaluable service by reporting the manipulation of the stock market by elements of organized crime. By outlining specific stocks and stock brokerage firms that were controlled by organized crime, he opened the door for FBI investigations in Florida and in New York, and for that we owe him a tremendous debt of gratitude."

Books

Born to Steal, published in 2003, is the true story of a Mafia-linked stockbroker named Louis Pasciuto. The book described how Wall Street firms were infiltrated by organized crime figures during the 1990s. Often the brokers were little more than teenagers.

Wall Street Versus America, published in April 2006, is a wide-ranging, acerbic attack on the morality of Wall Street, its regulators and the financial press. The book uses humor and ridicule to drive home its points. The book is critical of hedge funds, mutual funds, and the Wall Street securities arbitration process, as well as the New York Stock Exchange. His book also provides an unflattering assessment of former Securities and Exchange Commission chairmen Arthur Levitt and William H. Donaldson.

The New York Post called Wall Street Versus America "one of the most controversial business books of 2006," and New York Times critic Janet Maslin said that "Weiss is as sharp as he is mean-spirited in his guided tour of America's investment process." Maslin said: "Even at points when his book would be helped by a glossary and a bucket of cold water, the gale force of its arguments come through."

The book is strongly critical of the campaign against naked short selling, because he believes it threatens the ability of short sellers to deflate pump-and-dump schemes, thus providing cover to the scam artists behind such schemes.[4]

In the book and in articles, Weiss has singled out the Bear Stearns securities firm for criticism. In a March 2006 New York Times op-ed piece, Weiss chastized the SEC for what he described as inadequate penalties imposed upon the firm for mutual fund violations.[5] In Wall Street Versus America he sarcastically describes the firm as the "Eddie Haskell of Wall Street."

Weiss's acerbic commentary on Wall Street has provoked controversy. His caustic attacks on anti-naked-shorting activists has provoked a vituperative response, including threats.[6][7] Barron's called Weiss "an old-time gumshoe, with a soupcon of little-guy champion Jimmy Breslin and a dash of 1950s bad-boy comic Lenny Bruce."

Investigative reporting project

Weiss is a founding member of Project Klebnikov, a global media alliance investigating the July 2004 murder of Paul Klebnikov, editor in chief of the Russian edition of Forbes magazine, and other subjects. Project Klebnikov was organized by investigative journalist Richard Behar, and includes such prominent journalists as Michael Isikoff and Scott Armstrong.

Quotes

"The wretched impact of Regulation SHO became evident well before the worst parts of the new rule took effect in January 2005. By then, the shorts had already quietly folded up their tents and stalked off without a word, leaving the microcap market to the promoters, paid-research hype-masters, and fraudsters." -- Gary Weiss in Wall Street Versus America.

"You have a relationship with Wall Street whether you like it or not--and it's not working out."-- Id.

"In the eyes of the law, Wall Street is not Dodge City, as it is often portrayed in the media, but rather a tree-shaded side street in Mayberry, one that Opie might have used on the way to the fishing hole. In Mayberry, the doors are always unlocked. People trust one another. The entire system of Wall Street policing is based upon this kind of small-town neighborliness and confidence--not your confidence in Wall Street, but the confidence that Wall Street has in its regulators, and vice versa." -- from the Introduction to Wall Street Versus America.

Sources and external links

• Official Website
• Gary Weiss Blog
• Interview about Wall Street Versus America (Corporate Crime Reporter)
• Column about Weiss by Susan Antilla, Bloomberg news service
• ProjectKlebnikov.org