THE first, and so far only, prominent criminal trial stemming from the mortgage meltdown is now under way in New York. Let’s hope it’s not the last.

The Bear Stearns hedge fund managers Ralph Cioffi and Matthew Tannin, lied to investors “over and over again” to “save their multi-million dollar bonuses” ahead of the $1.6 billion (€1.07 billion) collapse of the funds they managed, say prosecutors.

As usual, the case is going to be all about e-mails (do we never learn?). The prosecution hinges on a string of missives written by the men that suggest they knew the market was “toast” (Cioffi’s term) well before their investors did. Tannin allegedly told clients 11 times that he was putting more of his own money into the fund, when he was not. The defence argues that the Bear boys used e-mails to “think aloud” and are simply being punished for failing to anticipate “the greatest financial crisis since the Great Depression”.

It’s hard not to feel some sympathy for them — after all, everyone was at it. These two are relative minnows who just happen to be have been landed in the dock because they were silly enough to trust their private thoughts to a very public medium.

When the last bubble burst, the Justice Department also started on the small fry, but there was a lot heat on them to move further up the food chain and they did, eventually netting bigger fish. Enron’s top two, Ken Lay and Jeff Skilling, Dennis “toga party” Kozlowski at Tyco and Bernie Ebbers at WorldCom ran the show. Maybe history will repeat itself. I hope so.

If they lied to investors, Cioffi and Tannin deserve to go down. But nobody can say that they caused the credit crisis or that they were the real reason Bear Stearns collapsed.

After 7m job losses and nearly 2m home foreclosures, you might think there would be more senior Wall Streeters heading for the dock by now. The problem this time is how to parcel out the blame for a system-wide failure.

Bankers were greedy and took advantage but lax legislation, public greed and gullibility played their part. We all share some responsibility for this mess. That doesn’t mean that some higher ups should not be held accountable. That’s what they get paid for.

Responding to a selection questionnaire, one prospective juror in the Bear case wrote “people on Wall Street try to get away with wrongdoing” while another wrote that big financial firms “always try to bend the rules to make as much money as possible”. They were rejected. The surprise is that lawyers managed to find another two who didn’t feel the same way.

Before the trial began, prosecutors ransacked Tannin’s Gmail account and came up with this beauty (sadly the judge has ruled it inadmissible): “Let me try and describe my mental state,” wrote Tannin. “I was incredibly stressed. It is a strange thing to be sitting here now, albeit on Wellbutrin [an antidepressant] and reflect back about the stress. Spreads are tight and credit is deteriorating. I was worried that this would all end badly and that I would have to look for work.”

If he’s unlucky, work won’t be a problem — the post office always needs mail bags and prisoners to sew them. Hopefully, he’ll have company.

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