NEW YORK — Love notes, a French song parody, and a winking emoticon were used by a government lawyer trying to show that Fabrice Tourre, the former Goldman Sachs vice president facing civil fraud claims over a failed $1 billion investment, lied to participants in the deal.
The Securities and Exchange Commission is using e-mails Tourre sent to a former girlfriend in 2007 as evidence he intentionally committed fraud in putting together a mortgage-bond backed investment known as Abacus. Closed in April 2007, it turned worthless when the housing market crashed.
In one e-mail Tourre referred to ''complex, highly levered, exotic trades'' he created as ''monstruousities.''
''This is a silly, romantic e-mail I sent late at night at a moment of market stress,'' Tourre said Thursday.
SEC lawyers are trying to show Tourre misled investors about the role of Paulson & Co., the hedge fund run by John Paulson, in helping select the assets behind the investment, which the fund then bet against.
Tourre has kept a low profile since enduring the questions of a Senate subcommittee in 2010 alongside other Goldman Sachs executives. The firm, which is paying Tourre's legal fees, settled SEC allegations for $550 million.