David A. Dadante was making questionable stock trades almost immediately after Ferris Baker Watts took him on as a client in early 2003.

By May of that year, Ferris management was concerned enough to launch an internal investigation. By early 2004, Ferris Chief Executive Officer Roger L. Calvert was so worried that he stopped letting Dadante borrow new money from the firm to buy shares.

Too bad they didn't shut him down and call the cops. If they had, documents filed yesterday suggest, the brokerage wouldn't have gotten into deep trouble with regulators, probably wouldn't be selling itself to a rival and wouldn't be ending a century-old Baltimore story.

Read the whole thing here.