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Oh Bowman Brown, why have you left us all alone?

Where will we get all of our super easy Stanford scandal posts? Will we have to put some effort into this blog again? Oh hail.

Let’s take a wistful look back at the evolution of a media anecdote writ large:

Our story begins on February 17, when the breaking news of the scandal emerged, with this quote from Brown:

''The Miami operation was an important focal point for international investors, especially from Latin America'' said Bowman Brown, a Miami attorney, who has several clients who bought CDs from the loosely regulated Antiguan bank. ``The consequences, particularly in Venezuela and also in Colombia and other Caribbean jurisdictions, will be significant.''

By Sunday, February 22, however, this blockbuster anecdote appeared in the Palm Beach Post:

During the 1980s, Stanford came calling at the office of Miami attorney Bowman Brown, a respected banking lawyer with the Shutts & Bowen law firm. Stanford needed help setting up a new venture.

"He wanted to set up an offshore operation with an office in Miami that would not be regulated by U.S. regulators," Brown said.

Suspicious, Brown declined the job.

Stanford ended up going elsewhere for legal help, and established the Miami office of Stanford International Bank of Antigua. The bank grew to three floors of an office building in downtown Miami. But around town, the Stanford bank's credibility wasn't high.

"It was an open secret in the banking community that the business model wasn't right," Brown said. "If you're paying above market rates and have a small accounting firm in a jurisdiction where they don't heavily regulate banks, and the process involves putting money into a black box and it comes out enhanced ... something is wrong."

About nine months ago, Brown said he saw Stanford in the elevator of his building, and Stanford bragged about the billions of dollars under management. But Brown got the last laugh. Last week, the Securities and Exchange Commission charged Stanford with orchestrating an $8 billion fraud selling high-yield certificates of deposit in his Antiguan bank. The SEC froze the assets of three of the companies Stanford controls: the bank; Stanford Group Co., a broker-dealer; and Stanford Capital Management, an investment adviser.

All Brown can say now is: "I am so glad I took a pass."

Ahh, a delicious war story, one of the best in my opinion.

The story of Bowman's Nostradamus-like good judgment was picked up everywhere, with inevitable TV interviews, and by the time the DBR picked it up, the story had this additional detail:

"What he wanted to do was just not workable in my view, it was not anything I wanted to be near," Brown said. "I told him that I couldn't help him, so he went across the street and found somebody who could and set up in Miami."

Now we know Shutts & Bowen (and Stanford's offices) are located in the Miami Center. And the American Lawyer reported this about Stanford's counsel:

One issue in particular, though, is relevant for the Am Law community: that an attorney for the company, Thomas Sjoblom of Proskauer Rose, sniffed out the fraud, withdrew his representation, and told federal investigators he essentially took back everything he had told to them in recent weeks, according to Bloomberg.

Sjoblom didn't return calls for comment, nor did Richard Razook of Hunton & Williams, another attorney reportedly representing Stanford.

Richard's office is not "across the street," it's well down the street on Brickell, and thus the mystery remains.

So by my estimation there are at least two more news pegs to this great anecdote -- (1) just who Bowman was vaguely alluding to without really identifying anyone in particular; and (2) the indignant denial by whoever the lawyer is that Bowman didn't specifically identify.

Come on folks, these posts don't write themselves. Give a brother a hand, will ya?