I don’t believe it was an accident that I took center stage at Rajaratnam’s trial.

In fact, the series of events leading up to it left me fairly certain that it was part of a deliberate campaign on the part of the Justice Department to try me and find me guilty in the court of public opinion. Preet Bharara, the ambitious US Attorney for the Southern District of New York, was itching to charge me — I could feel it.

I wasn’t a banker, but I was of sufficient stature that maybe the public wouldn’t notice the mismatch. However, with only the thinnest circumstantial case against me, he needed to ensure that the jury pool was primed to judge me harshly.

One question to which I — and many others — have given a great deal of thought is this: Why did the SEC scramble to file charges against me . . .