The media have given Arthur Levitt, former Chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), a pass by refusing to investigate his denial of halting investigations into his friends in finance.
But I have the inside story on the regulator that never could. 
In 1998 I was a former trader cooperating with Gary Weiss, a reporter for Business Week on what was to become the 1999 award-winning article, “Scandal on Wall Street.” The article exposed massive violations of federal Securities laws at the American Stock Exchange.
During my time with Weiss, he confided that a source at the SEC leaked that Levitt had put a stop to a 1995 investigation into front-running, at the Amex.
Front running is what happens when a specialist trader takes an order from a customer to buy stock at, for example, $90 a share. Instead of buying the stock for the customer, the specialist buys the stock for himself and then tells the customer “I’ ll fill your order at $90.10 per share.”
The specialist just inserted himself as a middle man into the trade and sold the stock to the customer at a higher price – a serious violation of federal securities laws.
The front-running scheme that Weiss brought to my attention involved the stock Beta Well Services (symbol: BWS). The specialist was Dennis Goin, a member of the Board of the American Stock Exchange.
Goin was a contradiction; a calm Irishman man with fiery red hair. He served as CEO of Goin & Co., and was known as a good guy.
Nobody at the exchange could believe it when he eventually got caught.
In time the Business Week reporter Weiss, had grown suspicious about Goin
and asked me what I knew, which was nothing. Ever the dogged reporter Weiss then tapped his sources at the SEC. The source confirmed that Goin had front-run public orders in both Beta Well Services and Conversion Industries.
Eventually, I confronted Goin. A man I thought to be decent because earlier he had expressed his disgust with the cover up of sexual harassment and rape committed by members of the board at the Amex.
I didn’t ask Goin outright if he had front-run public orders. Instead I said, “I heard you were meeting with an investigator from the Securities and Exchange Commission.”
Goin shrugged and sheepishly admitted that he had been investigated by the SEC, but that no charges had been filed. This did not make sense. Goin was bad and yet nobody could touch him. In order to find out what was going on I reached out to a high ranking member of the Amex equity trading analysis team.
He was big; about 6’3, and he was dirty. If you messed up and broke trading regulations you just had to slip him something to make it go away. Let’s call him “Big-dirty.” 
Big-dirty and I used to ride the PATH train together and our fascinating sojourn into the great Jersey plains always ended up in a garage because Big was afraid someone was following us.
Big-dirty was not a good guy but he gave me information because he was ambitious and the people he ratted out were in the way of his rise to the top.
Big confirmed what Weiss told me. He said, “Levitt, does not want any investigations at the Amex because it would reflect badly on him as a former Chairman of the Amex. And a lot of things actually happened under his watch, you know.”
After my tête-à-tête with Big-dirty, I reported back to Weiss and also gave him Big’s name as a source that would corroborate Goin’s illegal trading.
Weiss felt that as a journalist he could not turn whistleblower and so he suggested that I write a letter to Mary Jo White, United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York.
So I penned a note to see if she would investigate Goin and Levitt's interference in the SEC investigation.
On June 12, 1998 I wrote a letter, certified mail Z 055 653 287, to White.
In this brief letter I wrote that Levitt "illegally halted an investigation into illegal trading of Beta Well Services, BWS, which occurred in 1995 on the floor of the American Stock Exchange."
I then provided a copy of this letter to Gary Weiss.
On September 30, 1998 I once again wrote a letter, certified mail P 311835 724, to White. In this letter I said that "the specialist in Conversion Industries, Dennis Goin, had front run the stock in 1995." I then wrote: "... Levitt, Chairman of the SEC, who ordered the SEC
investigation to be halted.' Once again I provided Weiss with a copy of my letter.
But Weiss never ran the story. He told me that Stephen Shepard, then Publisher of Business Week and now Dean of CUNY school of Journalism, did not want to involve Arthur Levitt in a scandal.
Shepard did not return several calls as well as an e-mail message from The Black Star News seeking comment. He is now professor of the “Journalistic Judgment” class at CUNY. One wonders how to reconcile the course he teaches with the alleged cover-up of the news.
Don’t worry this story has an ending, if not exactly a happy one.
NASD regulation was a non-governmental organization created to protect the interest of investors. And seemingly, they were the only ones interested in upholding the law. The agency which now goes under the name FINRA was the one that finally investigated Goin and pushed the Amex to publicize it.
On June 12, 2003 the American Stock. Exchange published a Disciplinary Panel Decision, Case Nos. 01-41 and 03-32: In the Matter of Goin & Co., LLC and Dennis J. Goin. "As a penalty, the Panel imposed a censure and a joint and several fine of $10,000 on the firm and Goin.
As to Goin, the Panel further imposed a four-year ban and a re-qualification requirement."
