With Enron and other business scandals, it’s been a bit difficult to keep up with the ongoing grand jury investigation in Boston into whether mutual fund employees improperly accepted gifts or entertainment from brokers. Fidelity Investments has already disciplined 16 traders over matters relating to the investigation and five employees have left the company.
But even a grand jury investigation is merely a prelude for this Wall Street Journal ($) article that reports on the grand jury’s investigation into the details of the bachelor party of former Fidelity star trader Thomas Bruderman, who happened to be marrying the daughter of former Tyco International CEO Dennis Kozlowski. Small world, eh?

At any rate, the Journal article reports that the investigation has confirmed that this was not your typical bachelor party:

The festivities began with a trip by private jet from Boston to a small airport outside New York City. There, the revelers picked up some Wall Street traders and at least two women who investigators suspect may have been paid for their attendance, say people familiar with the matter. The partygoers — including the groom-to-be, who was getting ready to marry the daughter of former Tyco International Ltd. boss L. Dennis Kozlowski — then continued to trendy South Beach in Miami. The fun included a stay at the ritzy Delano Hotel for some, a yacht cruise and entertainment by at least one dwarf hired for the occasion.
“Some people are just into lavish dwarf entertainment,” says the 4-foot-2 Danny Black, a part-owner in Shortdwarf.com, an outfit that rents dwarfs for parties starting at $149 an hour. Mr. Black says he spent part of the weekend on the yacht and worked as a waiter on the Friday night at a high-end Miami eatery alongside what he called “regular size” people. “A good time was had by all,” he said, declining to provide further details.
One firm, Jefferies Group, paid for $75,000 worth of airfare to shuttle [the participants] to the bachelor party, according to people familiar with the matter. A person familiar with the matter said SG Cowen, a unit of SociÈtÈ GÈnÈrale SA, paid for the yacht party, which ran to almost $10,000.
Photos of the weekend are circulating on Wall Street, including ones of men and scantily clad women frolicking on a yacht, according to three people who have seen them. In one picture, Mr. Kozlowski is standing with a dwarf on the boat, according to people familiar with the situation. . .
Regulators have been able to piece together some of what happened that weekend . . . through interviews with participants and by reading email and other electronic communications.

Criminalizing agency costs is bad enough, but bachelor parties?
By the way, I do not believe that I have led a particularly sheltered life, but I must admit that I did not know that you could rent a dwarf for entertainment.