Frank Quattrone

Quattrone grew up in Philadelphia and attended St. Joseph's Preparatory School on an academic scholarship. He was admitted to the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania and graduated with honors. Following business school at Stanford University, he began work at Morgan Stanley's technology investment banking group.

In 2003, Quattrone was confronted with evidence of allegedly incriminating emails in a widely publicized series of trials. Some of the evidence included Quattrone forwarding to his entire staff an email with the subject 'Re: Time to clean up those files' after being told Credit Suisse First Boston was under investigation by a grand jury. The first trial resulted in a hung jury. The second trial resulted in a conviction. On appeal the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit reversed Quattrone's conviction, ruling, based in part upon the Supreme Court case Arthur Andersen LLP v. United States that Quattrone's jury had been given erroneous jury instructions. The appeals court also agreed with the defense that in the interest of justice, subsequent proceedings should take place in front of a different judge.

On August 22, 2006, Quattrone reached a deferred prosecution agreement, which allowed him to avoid prison time, "leading legal observers to label the agreement an exoneration." The National Association of Securities Dealers also dropped their charges. It was stated that he "plan[s] to resume [his] business career." According to reports, Mr. Quattrone would receive $100 million to $550 million in overdue compensation, so long as he would abide by an agreement and would not break the law for a year. Credit Suisse had paid for Quattrone's legal costs.

Since 2004, Frank Quattrone and his wife Denise have supported the Northern California Innocence Project (NCIP) based at Santa Clara University School of Law. Quattrone is Chair of the NCIP Advisory Board and an active fund-raiser for the project. At the NCIP inaugural Justice for All Awards Dinner in March 2008, Quattrone accepted the Leadership Award. In 2013, the Frank and Denise Quattrone Foundation made a $15 million gift to the University of Pennsylvania Law School to found the Quattrone Center for the Fair Administration of Justice, a research center conducting inter-disciplinary, data-driven policy level research and recommendations designed to address the system factors that lead to criminal justice error.