Most of the time, 10-Ks, 10-Qs, and annual reports can be pretty dull stuff. At least that's what a new SEC Inspector General's report on why the agency failed to 'discover' Madoff's Ponzi scheme suggests.

But every once in a while, the seemingly dry and monotonous business of regulating financial trading and securities enforcement comes alive. 

Like when S.E.C. officials failed discover Madoff's securities fraud and criminal wrongdoing despite a host of formal complaints made between 1992 and 2008.

Frank DePascali, the former CFO for Bernie Madoff's company, Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities, LLC, was charged with, and pleaded guilty to, ten criminal counts in federal court this afternoon for his lengthy role in helping Madoff carry out his criminal acts and conspiracy against investors, evading federal income taxes and perjuring himself in testimony before the S.E.C, and a host of other charges.

The 47-pages of criminal charges allege a host of conspiracy, fraud, and other illegal activity, including that DiPascali:

Update: Frank DiPascali, Bernard Madoff's former Chief Finance Officer, pleaded guilty to ten felony counts detailed in 47-pages of criminal charges. Read more here. (8:24 p.m. EST)
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Frank DiPascali, the former CFO for convicted Ponzi scheme investment manager Bernard 'Bernie' Madoff's company, Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities, LLC, is expected to plead guilty today to ten criminal counts in the investment debacle.

According to a filing by the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York, DiPascali's charges will include the following:

Maurice Greenberg, the former American International Group ('AIG') Chairman and CEO, and Howard Smith, the company's ex-CFO and former Vice Chairman, were sued by the S.E.C. for their alleged roles in "improper accounting transactions that inflated AIG's reported financial results between 2000 and 2005."

While there are numerous allegations of wrongdoing in the complaint, the S.E.C. simultaneously settled all charges against the two, requiring them to pay fines, penalties, and more.

Imagine you have a corporation that's hemorrhaging money. Shareholder's money, clients money, and money to pay employees and suppliers. What would you do if someone came along with some emergency moolah to save your business?

You'd be tempted to take it.

But if your business lost billions, you laid off thousands of employees, and you received roughly as much money in bailouts from the government, would you still pay employees hefty bonuses? Would you pay 'em billions and billions in bonuses?

With her passport in hand, and husband in the joint, one would think that Ruth Madoff is taking a leisurely vacation in the Carribean or French Riviera.

Wherever she is, the wife of convicted and imprisoned Ponzi schemer Bernard Madoff probably already knows that Madoff bankruptcy trustee Irving Picard just sued her, on behalf of investors, "to recapture at least $44,822,355 in funds that were transferred" from Madoff's bankrupt company direclty to his wife, "or for her benefit"

A federal judge dismissed the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission's civil insider trading charges against billionaire Mark Cuban today.

Chief Judge Sidney A Fitzwater of the U.S. District Court in Dallas wrote that the S.E.C. failed to plead that Cuban had "a duty to refrain from trading on information about the impending...offering" in search engine operator Mamma.com.

Since the securites law at issue did not impose a restriction upon Cuban prohibiting his "trad[ing] on or otherwise us[ing] the information for personal benefit" Judge Fitzwater concluded that Cuban "cannot be held liable under the misappropriation theory of insider trading liability."