Business Week Online notes some of the losers in the near-meltdown of the Bear Stearns High-Grade Structured Credit Strategies Enhanced Leverage fund [1]. Heading the list: The colorful and controversial Jeffrey Epstein's Financial Trust Company. A hedge fund managed by BNP Paribas is another beneficial owner. There are countless others with smaller stakes perhaps. For Epstein, this is a tricky situation. He was once a former Bear Stearns trader that turned himself into a hedge fund guy. He probably thought he had an in with his former company. This is one more piece of bad publicity. Last July, prosecutors in Florida charged him with solicitation at his Palm Beach (Fla.) mansion--made headlines of course.  Bad news has a way of cascading.

For more on Epstein:
- here's the article [2] from Business Week Online