Can't a white collar criminal accused of insider trading exit court with a modicum of dignity? Nope, not when the Daily News needs refill its trough with more of its scrumptious schadenfreude slop. One of the tabloid's photographer was dutifully stationed outside Manhattan Federal Courthouse yesterday morning to document the departure of one Michael Lucarelli, 51, who had just been arraigned for securities fraud. Lucarelli, it seems, did not want to be subjected to media scrutiny and tried to escape on foot, presumably for our amusement.

Jefferson Siegel deserves a Pulitzer for his sadly evocative photo of a single flip-flop left behind on a Manhattan sidewalk. (And the photo of Lucarelli peeking out from behind the courtroom doors is also priceless.) "He made it about 50 feet before his sandals slipped off," the News reports. "They were still sitting on Worth Street a half-hour after he fled." FREE SANDALS YOU GUYS.

Lucarelli, the Director of Market Intelligence at Lippert/Heilshorn & Associates, Inc., was arrested at his Upper East Side home Monday on charges that he traded on "material nonpublic information for his personal financial gain." Prosecutors say he used information gleaned from draft press releases for LHA clients to conduct illicit trades that raked in about $500,000.

"As alleged, and despite the well-known parade of convicted insider trading perpetrators over the past several years, Michael Lucarelli was not deterred and violated both his company’s policies and his responsibility to its clients by trading on material nonpublic information for his personal financial gain," U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara said.

Lippert/Heilshorn founding partner Keith Lippert insists Lucarelli and his flip-flops aren't representative of his company. "It’s very disconcerting, when you run a company for 30 years that prides itself on its honesty and integrity, and of its employees in dealing with clients’ non-public information, to have to deal with a rogue employee who, despite the firewalls in place and the rules and regulations, obviously completely ignored it for his own selfish gain," Lippert told New York Business Journal.