Milken, known as the Junk Bond King, was a pioneer of buying and selling lowly rated corporate "junk" debt. In 1989, authorities said he used inside knowledge of the debt being used in corporate takeover deal to make plays in the stocks of the related companies. He settled in 1990 by pleading guilty to securities fraud and paying a $600 million fine. After he was banned from the securities industry, his former Wall Street employer Drexel Burnham Lambert collapsed under the weight of a volatile junk bond market and declared bankruptcy.
