At the trial of a Citigroup executive a year ago, Matthew Martens attended as a spectator and watched the defense win jurors over with the "Where's Waldo" argument.
The jury cleared Brian Stoker of the fraud charges leveled against him by the Securities and Exchange Commission — a stinging setback for the agency's trial unit, which Martens heads. Stoker's attorney argued his client was a minor player at Citigroup, yet the SEC picked him out of the crowd as the sole culprit behind a mortgage deal gone bad.
"We certainly learned lessons," Martens, 41, said in an interview Friday.