5:00 PM -- Back in the day when I chugged dotcoms for breakfast, covering technology at Dead Herring in 1999, everybody just salivated over I-banker Frank Quattrone -- especially the media. His biggest claim to fame was using pre-IPO shares to incentivize business relationships, which kinda became the oil that lubed up the whole bubble machinery. Then when things got kinda nasty, Frank got sued -- and prosecuted.

For you optical heads out there, Quattrone was a mover and a shaker behind the Corvis IPO, which was underwritten by CSFB. (See Corvis IPO Terms Increased.)

I lost track of the story after the 15th in a series of legal actions -- guilty verdict, hung jury, mistrial, etc. But now I've just read on CNBC that not only will Quattrone walk, as charges against him will be dropped if he abides by the terms of a deferred prosecution agreeement, but his ex-employer, Credit Suisse , will have to pay him $120 million in back pay!

Go get 'em, Frank! You can say a lot of things about Quattrone, but you can't say he ain't got game. I mean, that is the deal of the century: from jail to free with $120 million in severance. In case you didn't follow, here's the progression:

GUILTY!

No wait -- we take that back!

Free at last!

What next?

Friends of Frank

Oh boy. Stay tuned for the next Frankenbubble

— R. Scott Raynovich, Editor in Chief, Light Reading