Time: Bharara ‘Busting Wall Street’

Time magazine this week profiles U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara in a cover story that’s sure to raise his profile following a string of highly publicized insider trading cases.

Bharara tells the magainze that, “Significant officials at publicly traded companies are casually and cavalierly engaged in insider trading…. Insider trading tells everybody at precisely the wrong time that everything is rigged, and only people who have a billion dollars and have access to and are best friends with people who are on boards of directors of major companies—they’re the only ones who can make a true buck.”

The full story goes live on time.com and hits newstands on Friday. The magazine posts some details on posted its Swampland blog now.

Bharara, born in India and raised in New Jersey, rarely gives interviews.

But he has had success in prosecuting both Wall Street crime and public corruption cases in Albany (save for the rare misfire of losing the first corruption case filed against Assemblyman William Boyland and New York City Councilman Larry Seabrook).

“It seems that no matter how many times the alarm goes off, Albany just hits the snooze button,” Bharara said late last year.

The magazine’s cover this week looks oddly reminiscent of the movie poster for “The Social Network,” which chronicles the early days of Facebook. Coincidentally, Mark Zuckerberg is taking the company public this week.