Not only did Matthew Tannin and Ralph Cioffi walk away from their three-week fraud trial with their freedom intact; the former Bear Stearns hedge-fund managers, whose hedge fund lost $1.6 billion, managed to hook some potential new clients!

Aram Hong, a juror from Woodside, Queens, said the exchanges between Cioffi and Tannin shown to the jury proved to her that the two men were working “24-7” to save the funds in the months before they collapsed. She noted a defense exhibit that showed the fund managers were working at 4 a.m. "If this was really a fraud case, they wouldn’t have worked that hard,” said Hong, 27, a food and beverage director at the Iroquois Hotel in midtown Manhattan, adding that she would invest with the two men if she had the money.

She'll have some time to save up. Cioffi and Tannin still have an SEC lawsuit to tackle, as well as various claims filed by their disgruntled investors.

Bear Juror Says U.S. Case So Weak She’d Invest With Defendants [Bloomberg]