Not really along the lines you provided but I thought your reporter who was following the misinvested 20 million might be interested in this item from pennlive.com.

This story may be relevant to what's going on up in Maine because it is alleged that the underwriter (analogy: Merrill Lynch broker) did not disclose the risks of certain investments (analogy: putting 20 million into a fund backed by very risky subprime mortgages). I'm not sure what the specific law is in Maine but it might be to your paper's journalistic benefit to ask a few questions of the US Attorney in Portland - at least to see if the PA situation is analogous and therefore relevant to Maine. Cheers.

"Philly bond underwriter in Forum Place deal indicted
by Reggie Sheffield
Tuesday December 11, 2007, 5:51 PM
The Philadelphia-based bond underwriter fined $1 million by the Securities and Exchange
Commission last year over his involvement in the Forum Place office building in down­town Harrisburg has been in­dicted for defrauding four Pennsylvania school districts by selling them high-risk secu­rities.

Robert Bradbury, 61, of West Chester, had previously been sued in federal court in Phila­delphia for allegedly defraud­ing four state school districts in selling them bonds used by the
Dauphin County General Au­thority and the Hummelstown General Authority in buying
the Whitetail Golf Course in Franklin County.

Tuesday's indictment involv­es bond anticipation notes sold to the Red Lion, York County, school district as well as the Boyertown, Berks County school district, and the Perkio­men Valley and North Penn school districts, both in Mont­gomery County.

According to Pat Meehan, the U.S. attorney for the East­ern District, the school districts lost a total of $10.5 million as a result of the fraud. Meehan, whose office is based in Phila­delphia, announced the indict­ment Tuesday afternoon in a special Harrisburg press con­ference because of its proximi­ty to the golf course.

The 28-page indictment al­leges that between 1998 and September 2004 Bradbury, the chairman, chief operating offi­cer and principal shareholder of Dolphin and Bradbury, a bond underwriting firm based in Philadelphia, failed to advise the school districts of the risks
associated with investing in the golf course project. Bradbury faces eight counts of mail fraud
and one count of securities fraud. A person convicted of mail fraud could face up to 20 years in prison on each count.

Last year, Bradbury was fined $1 million and sued by the Se­curities and Exchange Com­mission both for failing to ad­vise the same four school districts of the risks involved in speculative investments and for failing to properly advising investors in the Forum Place bonds that a major revenue-producing tenant would be leaving soon after the pur­chase.

The state School Code spe­cifically limits investments school districts may undertake and only allows districts to own securities if they are backed by a municipal or gov­ernmental entity.

In the Forum Place deal, in 1998 the Dauphin County Au­thority bought the Fifth and
Walnut streets building with $75.4 million in bonds. The au­thority defaulted on payments when it was unable to find enough tenants after several lu­crative state leases expired. "