Nearly two years after he was fired from Morgan Stanley Dean Witter & Company, then arrested by police for trying to hack into the firm's computers, Mr. Curry, 26, has landed at Gardner Rich & Company, a small Chicago-based institutional brokerage that has an office in Trump Tower, overlooking Central Park.

That brings the number of men who are taking a chance on Mr. Curry to two. His rehabilitation is in their hands. The first is his lawyer, Benedict Morelli, who is representing Mr. Curry in his $1.8 billion discrimination lawsuit against Morgan Stanley-and is doing so on a contingency basis.

The second is Chris Gardner, the 45-year-old African-American founder and president of Gardner Rich, who, ironically, got his start in business at Dean Witter, 15 years before it merged with Morgan Stanley. Mr. Gardner, a high school dropout who was once homeless, couldn't be more different from Mr. Curry or, for that matter, from Mr. Curry's former bosses at Morgan. His career in finance began in 1981, when he met a man in a red Ferrari in a San Francisco parking lot. The driver told Mr. Gardner what he did for a living: He was a stockbroker making $80,000 a month. Mr. Gardner decided that was what he wanted to be. So, while Mr. Gardner was living in a homeless shelter with his 1 year-old son, he entered a training program and began studying for his Series 7. He became a junior trader at Dean Witter, then went to Bear Stearns & Company, where he often slept under his desk. Now, 19 years later, Mr. Gardner has a Ferrari of his own, which he bought from basketball star Michael Jordan. (The license plate says, "NOT MJ.") He also has his own firm, which invests public employee pensions. He has given hundreds of thousands of dollars to educational charities and helped produce a booklet last year called Hard Work Pays . Distributed to seventh graders nationwide, the booklet has a picture of his Ferrari on its cover.

Compare this man to Mr. Curry, the Columbia College graduate raised in a well-to-do family in Chappaqua, N.Y. His career path traveled in the opposite direction to that of his new boss. He went from working at one of the country's most prestigious investment banks to spending the night in jail.

In April 1998, shortly after nude photographs of Mr. Curry appeared in a gay pornographic magazine, Morgan Stanley fired him, citing fraudulent expense records. That August, Mr. Curry was arrested by Manhattan cops after allegedly trying to hack into the Morgan Stanley in-house computer system in an attempt to gather e-mails that would incriminate the firm in the planned racial discrimination suit. Charges against Mr. Curry were eventually dropped when Manhattan prosecutors discovered that Morgan Stanley had paid a police informant $10,000 to set up Mr. Curry in the hacking scheme. Still, the fired banker became a pariah on Wall Street, as press accounts described his lax work habits and arrogant demeanor.

Mr. Gardner and Mr. Curry met at a party last year. Mr. Gardner hired Mr. Curry to be a research associate at his New York office. The job started last fall. "He's a bright young guy, and he's going to have a career in this business if he wants it," said Mr. Gardner from his Chicago headquarters. quot;My concerns about Christian are that what I need to get done, gets done. And what he's going through with these other guys is of no interest to me. Obviously, he did something stupid, but I think when I was 20 I did some stupid shit, too. Again, bottom line, we're looking for talent. And the nice thing about this kid-and I keep calling him 'kid'; he's a young man-the nice thing about him is, he never worked on the Street long enough to form a lot of bad habits. You know what I mean? You get some folks who've been out here a while, and they've figured out seven ways to fuck you before you get out of bed in the morning! But I see in him things that kind of remind me of myself. I mean, I have come to be in this business, I'm very lucky to be in this business, very nontraditional, if you will, competing with guys who went to Harvard from kindergarten."

The Observer pointed out that Mr. Curry had attended an Ivy League school.

"Yeah, he did," Mr. Gardner said. "But where is he now? Where did that get him? What did that net him? He's at a point now where somebody's gotta say, 'O.K., you know what? I'm gonna give you a shot.' That's the strongest similarity. All right? Not where are you from, but where are you at now? And had guys at Bear Stearns not given me a shot, I would've never been in this business." Meanwhile, Mr. Curry has been lying low. "I am grateful for the opportunity Mr. Gardner has given me," he said, reached via cell phone while walking on the Columbia University campus, where he had gone to visit an undergraduate dean who he hopes will testify on his behalf as a character witness in court. He declined to comment further on the new job, explaining that Gardner Rich is "a privately held company whose policy is not to talk about its employees."

The Advocate

Mr. Curry's new shyness toward the press may have something to do with his lawyer, Mr. Morelli, who took on the employment discrimination case in early 1999. Mr. Morelli has told Mr. Curry to keep quiet while he handles the publicity for the case. Early on, Mr. Curry was a loose cannon, but now, under the tutelage of Mr. Morelli, he has developed into quite the reticent plaintiff. Still, the benefits of sympathetic press are not lost on Mr. Morelli, who was incensed last year when 20/20 , then 60 Minutes , canceled intended segments on the Curry case after Morgan Stanley refused to cooperate on the stories. Mr. Morelli loves to drop the names of reporters and news organizations that have called him about Mr. Curry. " I went on the record, right from the beginning," said Mr. Morelli, "Everybody [was saying], 'Oh, I wanna talk to Curry, I wanna talk to Curry,' and I said, 'Sure you wanna talk to him now. But if you don't treat me good, you're not gonna be able to have anything later, because Curry's the story only for a few days, and then it's about the case.'"

Since Jan. 18, Mr. Curry has been spending his days at Mr. Morelli's midtown office, giving depositions. He has taken three weeks off from his new job to concentrate on that task.

The Shadow

Then there's C. Joseph Luethke, the only character in this drama whose behavior may be more bizarre than Mr. Curry's. Mr. Luethke was the informant who was paid $10,000 by Morgan Stanley to help set up Mr. Curry in the computer hacking sting. He has proved a slippery fellow, shaking alliances, making grandiose claims and, in general, persisting in his attempts to stoke interest in his peculiar take on the case.

On the morning of Jan. 24, he stopped by the editorial offices of The Observer to drop off his latest input on the Curry case: an affidavit, or "declaration," signed by a notary public and received by the U.S. District Court in Manhattan the same day. His declaration makes all kinds of outlandish allegations, asserting, among other things, that a Chubb & Son insurance adjuster named Jonathan Kurens served as a go-between for Mr. Luethke and Morgan Stanley in the planning of the police sting; and that Manhattan District Attorney Robert Morgenthau is "obstructing justice" due to his "role in the pedophilia ring, 'Club of Kings,'" a group Mr. Luethke nicknames "Cock." Mr. Kurens referred calls to Chubb's communications office, which declined comment. A press officer for Mr. Morgenthau declined comment on the court filing.

Despite several follow-up phone calls placed to The Observer , Mr. Luethke, whose phone number has been disconnected, could not be reached for comment. However, sources with knowledge of the Curry case said the U.S. Attorney's office suspects Mr. Luethke of perjuring himself; apparently, the facts he states in his affidavit don't square with those in his depositions. Marvin Smilon, the press officer for the Federal court, had no comment on whether prosecutors had launched an investigation.

Even those who claim to have even the most cursory contact with Mr. Luethke are befuddled by his elusiveness and penchant for conspiracy theory.

"I met with him one time in my life, Mr. Luethke, other than the deposition, for an hour in my office, and I wouldn't talk to him again," said Mr. Morelli. "One time, for one hour, in my office, maybe about six months ago … and it took me about 20 minutes to figure out that you could never figure out anything he's talking about."

"He tries to be very clandestine, like he's a secret agent," agreed a police source who met with Mr. Luethke last fall. "He's got this stupid baseball cap, and he's carrying a newspaper under his arm. He's been watching too many spy movies."

Long before he was arrested in August 1998 for allegedly attempting to hack into Morgan Stanley's computer system and plant racist e-mails, Mr. Curry had other legal troubles-foremost among them his 1997 assault upon a fellow Columbia University graduate, for which he was convicted after trial. But according to court documents, the former banker has also tussled legally with a Boston medical insurance company and even his alma mater, Columbia, over unpaid college tuition fees.

All this could give Morgan Stanley ample fodder to attack Mr. Curry's credibility and character in their defense of his $1.35 billion wrongful-termination suit against the firm. But sources with knowledge of Morgan Stanley's defense tactics claim that won't be their strategy.

Instead, the sources said, the firm will stick to the theme articulated again and again in both its press statements and its legal answer to Mr. Curry's suit, filed June 7: that the erstwhile banker went wild with his expense card and then filed fraudulent expense claims for items as frivolous as Cole-Haan shoes and car washes, far beyond the purview of the Chinese-food takeout orders and livery-vehicle rides home that typify the expense report of a young securities analyst.

"This isn't just a kid who boosted some tips on a taxi ride," said a source familiar with the firm's legal strategy. "This guy seriously fabricated events." Given that belief, the source said he expects to see Mr. Curry squirming on the witness stand: "Christian Curry is going to spend a lot of time trying to explain things that are inexplicable."

The suit is now in pretrial discovery at Federal District Court in Manhattan. On June 16, Judge Denny Chin met both with Mr. Curry's civil lawyer, Benedict Morelli, and Martin London, the attorney handling Morgan Stanley's defense, in his chambers at 500 Pearl Street. The parties have until their next judge's conference-on Jan. 21-to take depositions to support their various claims. Barring a settlement, a trial date will be set.

Sources privy to Morgan Stanley's plans said they are aiming for trial-that is, if they can't have the case thrown out by summary judgment. "Morgan Stanley is going to see it through to the end-whether it's summary judgment or trial," said one source, "and they're confident in the result."

Speculation has it that the firm executives who ferociously guard Morgan Stanley's image-like president John Mack, who personally called banking associate Phil Potter, fired in 1997 for speaking to the press, to inveigh against his poor judgment-would never allow Morgan Stanley's inner workings to be exposed in a hail of depositions taken by the Curry camp. But as the firm enters into its sixth week of public relations hell, proving its point about Mr. Curry may be worth the hassle of a court trial.

Such prospects have Mr. Morelli's spirits singing. "A trial is going to be good for us," he told The Observer , "because it's going to bring out really what happened, what transpired during the employment, what was really the impetus for his being fired, and what was the impetus to have him arrested."

He added that he plans to file an amended complaint June 23, and proceed with taking depositions as soon as possible.

Asked whether Mr. Curry's legal history could prove problematic, Mr. Morelli seemed unconcerned. "I understand that there are certain issues to be dealt with, but I'm going to tell you that I firmly believe that our case is meritorious, or I would have never brought it," he told The Observer .

Mr. Curry's earliest brush with the New York court system appears to be a pair of suits filed in 1997 by Liberty Mutual Insurance Company, a Boston-based company that provided health care coverage to Mr. Curry's father, Dr. William Curry, in 1994, according to the suits. After an alleged taxicab hit-and-run accident in 1994, Christian Curry asked Liberty Mutual to pay his doctor's bills, claiming that he had experienced "musculoskeletal pain" after banging his head against a cab partition. But the company balked at the request, asserting that Mr. Curry was not covered under his father's plan, and requested stronger evidence of his injuries. The case was settled; the terms could not immediately be determined.

Scuffling with one's insurance carrier, even in court, is a common enough occurrence. But in March 1998, nearly a year after his graduation from Columbia University, Mr. Curry was faced with a more unusual legal conundrum when the trustees of the school sued him for $14,000 in unpaid tuition and interest. Several months later in June of the same year, the County Civil Court in Manhattan ruled in favor of Columbia.

By that time, Mr. Curry was in the midst of the District Attorney's investigation into his 1997 attack on Scott Sartiano, a fellow Columbia graduate. According to a police deposition, the assault occurred around 4:30 A.M. on Nov. 16, 1997, in front of Fishs Eddy, a cookware shop on Broadway and 19th Street. The deposition states that Mr. Curry punched Mr. Sartiano "repeatedly about the face, chest and stomach with a closed fist," and kicked Mr. Sartiano "repeatedly in the stomach … and shove[d] Mr. Sartiano against a glass door of a store … causing the door to shatter."

Mr. Sartiano, who graduated from Columbia College in 1996, could not be reached for comment. But according to Jon Norinsberg, the Manhattan-based civil litigator who represents him, the case centered on a romantic dispute over Marisa Wheeler, then a Columbia junior, who in recent months has become engaged to marry Mr. Curry. "[Mr. Curry] was in some type of jealous rage over her," said Mr. Norinsberg. "He basically threatened my client with his life and then followed through on it afterwards."

Mr. Norinsberg added that Mr. Curry had hassled Mr. Sartiano at a club near Fishs Eddy where Mr. Sartiano worked as a part-time promoter, then waited outside the club for hours after being thrown out. (He declined to name the club.) It was then, asserted Mr. Norinsberg, that Mr. Curry attacked Mr. Sartiano.

Mr. Norinsberg described his client as being "still in the process of getting a medical examination"; he said the attack caused "permanent damage to his knee" and "a permanent scar on his forehead, [both of which] are still bothering him in terms of pain."

Hours after the incident, Mr. Curry was escorted from the offices of Morgan Stanley at 1585 Broadway and arrested at a nearby police precinct on a misdemeanor assault charge. Over a year later, in early February 1999, he took the stand in his own misdemeanor trial at Manhattan Criminal Court. He was convicted by Judge Robert Sackett of the assault charge on Feb. 4, and sentenced to three years' probation, plus a restitution fee of $1,464. An order of protection was also granted to Mr. Sartiano.

Sources with knowledge of Mr. Curry's testimony said his accounts of the nightclub incident were barely believable. "The upshot of it was, he testified to things in court that I believe were patently false," said Mr. Norinsberg. He said that Mr. Sartiano is "contemplating civil litigation."

"It was a misunderstanding over Curry's fiancée, and it will be overturned very soon on appeal," said a source close to Mr. Curry, who added that he had an alibi witness who was not permitted to testify during the trial.

Mr. Morelli referred specific questions about his client's assault conviction to Earl Rawlins, Mr. Curry's criminal attorney. However, he said that Mr. Curry plans to appeal the misdemeanor conviction, which he believes to be in error. "He says at the time, it was not him," said Mr. Morelli. "And that was the position they took during the trial, and it was only a problem of not being able to use … one or two witnesses." He added that Mr. Curry had informed him of the conviction before Mr. Morelli took the case. Mr. Rawlins could not be reached for comment by press time.