Several readers sent accounts from the California press on the latest sordid chapter in a long-standing, large scale pay-to-play scandal at the giant California public pension fund, CalPERS. Earlier this month, state papers reported disclosed that the former CEO, Frank Buenrostro, had cut a plea bargain with Federal prosecutors and was turning evidence on his (alleged) former partner in crime, placement agent and former CalPERS board member Alfred Villalobos. We’d heard privately before that story broke that the charges against Buenrostro were about to be greatly expanded, which is likely what lead the former CEO to fold. But as a CalPERS insider told us, “It was a race to see who was going to cut a deal first.”