Well, there's moral complexity (who's ultimately responsible?), there's procedural complexity (how do you explain financial concepts to a jury?) and then there's the somnial complexity, the daunting task of keeping a jury awake.

It's that latter that's may pose the biggest challenge in the government's case against two former brokers at LinkBrokers Derivatives. As Peter Henning points out in today's Times, defendants Marek Lezczynski and Benjamin Chouchane are charged with amassing $18.7 million in ill-gotten gains by overcharging customers on more than 36,000 transactions.

In some cases, the brokers simply executed trades at one price, and reported trades at another, like so (from the complaint):

On April 10, 2007 at 3:06 p.m., a customer sent Chouchane an email placing an order to buy shares of Dow Chemical Co. (“DOW”). Interdealer Broker executed the trade, purchasing 39,600 shares of DOW on the customer’s behalf at $45.4335 per share. The trade blotter reflects an execution price of $45.4335, a gross price of $45.4535, and a net price of $45.4635. At 4:11 p.m., Chouchane emailed the customer a trade recap confirming the trade at the false execution price of $45.4535 per share. The commission for this transaction was $0.01 per share, resulting in a total commission of $396 for this trade, which Interdealer Broker charged the customer. However, Chouchane failed to disclose the additional fraudulent markup of $792.

In other cases, the defendants sought to take a portion of their customers' profits by first buying shares for the client, then selling some of the client's shares at a higher price, and capturing the difference. Like so:

On April 26, 2007 from 2:48 p.m. until 2:49 p.m., Interdealer Broker executed a customer’s order to sell 22,576 shares of Qualcomm, Inc. (“QCOM”) at an average price of $45.7500. At 3:41 p.m., Interdealer Broker bought back 3,000 shares—shares that should have been allocated to the customer—for an average price of $45.3500. At 4:30 p.m. Leszczynski falsely reported to the customer that Interdealer Broker was only able to sell 19,576 shares for the customer and was not able to fill the remaining shares ordered by the customer. Specifically, Leszczynski stated: “Remaining balance cancelled as stock didn’t trade @ the limit.” At 4:40 p.m., despite having sold 22,576 shares, Interdealer Broker allocated sell executions representing only 19,576 shares of QCOM to its customer for a gross execution price of $45.7500 per share. Interdealer Broker recognized an additional secret profit of approximately $1,200 on the purchase of the 3,000 shares. In total, Interdealer Broker recognized approximately $1,335 in profits from the transaction while only disclosing a commission of $135.07 to the customer.

Mr. Henning notes that with 36,000 transactions to be entered into evidence, proving the case won't be easy: "Imagine trying to put together a puzzle with that many pieces." Our sympathies in this instance are less with the prosecutors and more with the jurors tasked with keeping their eyes open should the case go to trial.

One of the defendants, Peter Ghavami, a Belgian who had been head of an investment bank in Moscow, was arrested in December 2010 at Kennedy Airport. In the Libor case, a number of banks are outside the United States, so individuals who might be involved should be wary about traveling to this country because of the risk that they could be detained.

Two other points from Mr. Henning's take on the Deutsche case: Prosecutors can probably count on a 10-year statute of limitations in Libor cases, and if you even considered manipulating interbank lending rates while sitting near a computer, you probably committed wire fraud.

Mostly, though, consider a fake passport.

Fools! The trial of former mid-level Citigroup employee Brian Stoker for his role in creating and marketing mortgage-backed securities that the government says were designed to fail won't satisfy the public's appetite for convictions arising from the financial crisis, writes Steven M. Davidoff in The Times. The trial is more likely to show "how clueless financiers can be."

Showed himself the door: HSBC chief compliance officer David Bagely resigned in the middle of his testimony at the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations yesterday, during which executives apologized for the lax oversight that allowed the bank to do business with sanctioned countries such as Iran, organizations with terrorist ties and Mexican drug cartels.

Profits down: Goldman Sachs' net income fell 12 percent in the second quarter of 2012, as trading profits lagged. The results still beat analysts estimates, which were lowered sharply in the weeks leading up to yesterday's announcement. The firm said it would seek to cut $500 million in expenses to make up for lower revenue. Meanwhile, Goldman reached a class-action settlement with investors in a $698 million mortgage backed securities offerings, according to Bloomberg.

BofA next: In addition to Goldman, JPMorgan and Citigroup also announced lower second-quarter profits. Bank of America will release results today, with some analysts expecting the bank to show a profit after losing money in the same period last year.

Libor-ated: Bank of England boss Mervyn A. King told Parliament that the Federal Reserve Bank of New York shared recommendations on how to improve the Libor-setting process, but never mentioned that a Barclays employee had told FRBNY that the bank was low-balling Libor submissions to protect its share price.

City of Compton...Is on pace to run out of cash to make payroll on Sept. 1, and may join the growing group of California municipalities to declare bankruptcy, Reuters reports. Stockton, Mammoth Lakes and most recently, San Bernardino have said they will file for bankruptcy.

Want to see mad? Pay an investment-banking analyst a bonus that's 20 to 40 percent less than his peers.