Another Giant Falls in Quattrone

Updated from 2:17 p.m. EDT

Federal prosecutors are looking a lot more effective than they did seven months ago.

Fresh off their Martha Stewart conviction, the government nailed up a second hide Monday when a New York jury convicted former technology-investment banker Frank Quattrone, on obstruction of justice in his second trial.

A jury in Manhattan returned guilty verdicts on all three counts against the former Credit Suisse First Boston banker(CSR Quote) -- obstructing a grand jury, obstructing federal regulators and witness tampering -- after just seven hours of deliberation.

The quick guilty verdict was a stunning reversal for Quattrone, whose first trial ended last October in a hung jury after six days of deliberation. In that case, a slim majority of jurors had favored a conviction of the man who once earned $120 million in a single year.

The conviction means the mustachioed 48-year-old banker, who brought more tech firms to market during the 1990s than any other investment banker, could be sentenced to more than a year in prison.

Quattrone's lawyer, John Keker, said he was disappointed with the verdict and said his client would appeal.

The second trial was similar to the first. In a surprising move, Quattrone again took the stand in his own defense, a gambit that led several jurors to vote for conviction when they otherwise wouldn't have.

The case against Quattrone stemmed from a single email in which Quattrone recommended that his staff clean out their files and destroy documents. Quattrone and his lawyers portrayed the email as a routine Wall Street housekeeping move. But prosecutors said Quattrone had a more sinister motive, since he had just become aware of a federal investigation into CFSB's IPO practices.

The trial's larger theme was CSFB's practice of dishing out hot IPO shares to favored clients and hedge funds in return for higher-than-normal commissions, or "kickbacks." But the criminal investigation of CSFB ended without any charges being brought. In 2002, CSFB settled a related civil investigation by the Securities and Exchange Commission and the NASD by paying a $100 million fine.

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