<p>A former top official at the country’s third-largest pension fund and two broker-dealers were charged Wednesday in what a federal prosecutor described as a classic bribery scheme that steered $2 billion in trades in exchange for drugs, prostitutes, vacations and U.S. Open tennis tickets.</p>
<p>“The hard-earned pension savings of New Yorkers should never serve as a vehicle for corrupt personal enrichment,” Manhattan U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara said in a statement, calling the alleged pay-for-play arrangement a “classic, quid-pro-quo bribery scheme.”</p>