Wall Street Crime: 7 Years, 156 Cases and Few Convictions

The analysis shows not only the rarity of proceedings brought against individual bank employees, but also the difficulty authorities have had winning cases they do bring.

Most of the bankers who were charged pleaded guilty to criminal counts or agreed to settle a civil case, with those facing civil charges paying a median penalty of $61,000. Of the 11 people who went to trial or a hearing and had a ruling on their case, six were found not liable or had the case dismissed. That left a total of five bank employees at any level against whom the government won a contested case. They include Mr. Heinz, the former UBS employee.

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There are plenty of possible explanations for the small number of successful cases. For starters, much of the institutional conduct during and after the financial crisis didn't break the law, said law-enforcement officials. Even when the government has been able to prove illegal activity, it has rarely been traced to the upper echelons of big banks.

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The Journal's analysis found that about half of the 47 bank employees charged since 2009 held junior or midlevel jobs--vice presidents, financial advisers, private bankers and managing directors. Most had quit or been fired before the bank was charged, sometimes years earlier.

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In 2012, a New York jury convicted Mr. Heinz, now 43 years old, and two colleagues of rigging a bidding process in which banks competed for contracts to invest proceeds from bonds issued by towns and cities. Prosecutors said the three men steered financial contracts to their friends in exchange for kickbacks and other favors, resulting in cities and towns paying millions more for the deals than they needed to. Mr. Heinz, a vice president on UBS's municipal-bond reinvestment desk, was sentenced to 27 months in prison and ordered to pay a $400,000 fine.

His lawyer, Marc Mukasey of Greenberg Traurig LLP, said the government "tends to go after the low-hanging fruit, and they bully a lot of people into settlements or into testifying in a way that helps their case." He said Mr. Heinz had been doing his job in good faith, when the government "decided to criminalize something that had previously never been criminalized."