Albany’s Times Union writer Marlene Kennedy decries Grasso’s victory last week – not on legal merits or out of a sense of outrage, but because it “denies us a rich spectacle:”

I had been looking forward to daily, nonstop TV coverage of the trial -- think O.J. Simpson, but for the Wall Street set [of the late 90’s]…

You remember the period: The bull market was beginning to roar and the titans of industry were amassing hefty compensation packages. Jack Welch left General Electric Co. (NYSE: GE) in 2002 with an annual retainer of $86,000 and, it turned out, perks that included sports tickets, use of company aircraft and an $11 million Manhattan apartment, bodyguards and other things that the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission later valued at about $2.5 million annually.

The disclosures mightily embarrassed the company, and Welch subsequently gave back much of the package.

There were the shenanigans of former Tyco (NYSE: TYC) chief Dennis Kozlowski (of the $6,000 shower curtain fame) and HealthSouth's Richard Scrushy (found guilty of bribing the governor of Alabama) and WorldCom's Bernard Ebbers (accounting fraud and conspiracy), and the late Kenneth Lay of Enron (deceiving company employees and shareholders).