A federal grand jury in Brooklyn indicted two former Credit Suisse Group brokers last week in the unfolding crisis with auction-rate securities issued by major financial institutions, according to the Wall Street Journal.

The criminal indictments are expected to be the first of many, as federal authorities and the Securities and Exchange Commission try to establish responsibility in what is yet another Wall Street credit mess.

As Red Alert previously reported, the crisis with auction-rate securities has left thousands of individual investors without retirement savings and scores of institutional buyers and charities with losses yet to be measured. ....