Wall Street might want to quiet its chortling over former New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer's recent turn of events. His prosecutorial legacy appears to be alive and well in the form of Andrew Cuomo.

Current New York Attorney General Cuomo has sent subpoenas to 18 banks to find out more about how they sold auction-rate securities, according to reports in the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times. And even more subpoenas are in the works.

Auction-rate securities are long-term municipal bonds that were widely considered to be like cashlike, liquid investments until their market froze in February due to a lack of buyers. Because the bonds' rates reset at auction every week or month, corporate and individual investors used them as a place to park their money. But now they can't access that money since they can't sell the securities.

Cuomo is allegedly looking at how the banks, including Goldman Sachs, Merrill Lynch, and UBS, marketed the securities to investors, as well as how they pitched them to municipalities as a way to help them raise money. The municipalities, such as cities, schools, and transportation agencies, are often stuck paying high rates on the bonds when their auctions fail.

Separately, regulators from nine states announced today that they have joined forces to investigate the collapse of the auction-rate securities market. "We're all getting complaints on a daily basis from retail investors and they all have the same the story: They were told by their brokers these were as safe as cash and they're not," Bryan Lantagne, the securities division director for Massachusetts Secretary of State William Galvin, told Bloomberg News.

But, echoing the prosecutorial style of his predecessor Spitzer, Cuomo isn't part of the group effort. New York is the only state that grants its attorney general the privilege of bringing criminal charges related to securities cases, thanks to a law called the Martin Act. His counterparts in other states have civil authority in such matters.

Spitzer used his criminal authority (and headline-making powers) to skewer Wall Street banks and their research practices after the dotcom bubble burst. He also went after them for their trading practices in mutual funds.

This latest matter provides one more example of how tough times for Wall Street often end up being lucrative times for Wall Street lawyers. The banks are already facing a plethora of investigations and class-action lawsuits related to many of the toxic securities that have led to funds collapsing and the fire sale of Bear Stearns.