The much awaited trial of Ralph Cioffi and Matthew Tannin, the managers of two failed Bear Stearns hedge funds that sparked a market meltdown during the summer of 2007, looks like it will have a new twist when it gets underway on October 13. One of the defendants, Ralph Cioffi, made a lightening-fast trip to Florida last month allegedly to get his hands on a key piece of evidence -- documents from Busey Bank, in Ft. Myers, Fla. Was the hedge fund manager engaging in a cover-up, as the U.S. Attorney's Office in Brooklyn asserts? Or was Cioffi merely up to a bit of amateur detective work to exonerate himself, as his defense attorney claims?
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