Ex-Wall Street brokers choose new beat: NYPD

They used to ride desks and flog stocks, but now some Wall Street refugees are choosing to walk a beat and chase bad guys.

A handful of brokers and mid-level executives from investment firms have recently turned to the New York Police Department for careers and steady employment, according to a report earlier this month in The New York Times. Those former Wall Street workers make up a small portion of the overall surge in highly qualified job applicants to the NYPD, The Times said.

One former broker with WaMu Investments Inc. joined the force last December. “I was making a lot of money, and then not making money,” said Officer Ricardo Montilla, who was a rep with WaMu in Brooklyn until July 2008. “As the economy got worse, the investments dried up and I needed more stability. The police offer a pension that’s unheard of,” he told The Times.

WaMu Investments is now in Chapter 11; its parent, Washington Mutual Inc., was wiped out in the credit crisis and certain assets were acquired by JPMorgan Chase & Co.

The poor job market and a competitive salary were the major reasons for people looking to join the police force, The Times said.

The base salary for first-year officers is $41,975. After five and a half years, the total compensation — including holiday pay, uniform allowance and other benefits — rises to $90,829.

Of course, that’s just cigar and cognac money for those who have hung onto their jobs on the Street. According to recent reports, employees with The Goldman Sachs Group Inc. are on pace to earn about $717,000 apiece for 2009. Subtract temporary employees and consultants from the equation, and compensation per employee would jump to about $775,000.

Mr. Montilla has his hands full in his new job. This month, he arrested a 400-pound man in Harlem who was holding 10 bags of crack cocaine. The officer told The Times that the angriest person he had dealt with before that was an investor looking for a better rate on municipal bonds.