NYSE Issues Prison Consultant Cease And Desist Letter

The NYSE has fired off an angry "cease and desist" letter to consultancy firm Wall Street Prison Consultants, which offers advice to white-collar felons on how to survive life behind bars.

Established by former federal inmate Larry Levine, Wall Street Prison Consultants offers the "Fedtime 101" course teaching errant financiers anything from prison etiquette, prison survival, to the basics of brewing alcohol from food remnants. But its website has infuriated the New York Stock Exchange as it shows a picture of the stockmarket trading floor and asks: "Going from the exchange floor to the prison yard?"

In its letter, the NYSE's senior vice-president for legal affairs, Janet Parkhurst, accused Wall Street Prison Consultants of implying a link between the exchange and wrongdoing by stating:  "Your unauthorised use of the images of the facade and the trading floor, as well as your unauthorised references to NYSE and the trading floor, and the use of these to draw false connections between NYSE and criminal behaviour, tarnishes the image of the NYSE and its affiliated companies."

In his response, Levine, whose recently been interviewed on CNN, MSNBC, Bloomberg Financial as well several Fox News programs said: "The NYSE gotta be in the dark if they believe that my use of their images tarnishes their reputation. With all the SEC inquires and indictments coming out of the Feds, the whole world knows Wall Street's full of dirty traders."