A former Wall Street securities trader found liable in August for civil securities fraud for misleading clients over mortgage investments was slated to teach an economics course at the University of Chicago this spring – until campus officials abruptly pulled the plug on the assignment.
Fabrice Tourre, who gained fame as a clever Goldman Sachs trader who misled investors during the financial housing crisis in 2007, had enrolled in the economics doctoral program at the university after his summer trial.
And like most other aspiring PhDs, he became a teaching assistant and was tapped to teach a section this spring – in this case, an honors course called Elements of Economic Analysis 3. But not any more.
“Fabrice Tourre is no longer assigned to be an instructor,” a campus official said in an email this week to The College Fix. “He will be able to fulfill the teaching requirements for his Ph.D. program through opportunities in his department’s graduate-level curriculum.”
Prior to his time at the University of Chicago, Tourre worked at Goldman Sachs and gained the nickname “Fabulous Fab.”
In 2007, he created a financial program known as Abacus 2007 – AC1. According to prosecutors, it was a group of mortgage-backed securities destined to fail, hiding this fact from investors. Tourre earned his employers $1 billion, and Tourre reportedly received $2 million along with a promotion for his part.
But Tourre got caught, thanks in part to emails he sent to his girlfriend boasting about his lie to investors, according to the court proceedings.
One reads: “When I think that I had some input into the creation of this product (which by the way is a product of pure intellectual masturbation, the type of thing which you invent telling yourself: Well, what if we created a ‘thing,’ which has no purpose, which is absolutely conceptual and highly theoretical and which nobody knows how to price?) it sickens the heart to see it shot down in mid-flight.”
Goldman Sachs was fined $550 million for its role. Tourre still owes $1 million in fines to the Securities and Exchange Commission. Tourre has appealed the ruling against him.
Tourre did not reply to The College Fix’s interview request, but last year gave the Wall Street Journal a sneak peak into his life as a grad student.
Tourre was captain of an undefeated intramural soccer team, a tutor to classmates, and lived in a rather nice apartment with a view of Lake Michigan. He eyed a new career as a professor at the University of Chicago, teaching economics.
Some students are bummed he won’t be now.
“Fab’s not teaching? This is sad,” commented one student on the Chicago Maroon campus newspaper website. “I really wanted to take his class.”
The Chicago Maroon had first reported the teaching assignment Feb. 21.
College Fix contributor Samantha Watkins is a student at Point Loma Nazarene University.
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