An important trial starts next week — that of ex-Goldman Sachs trader Fabrice P. Tourre.

In 2010, the SEC alleged the 34-year-old was principally responsible for ABACUS 2007-AC1, a mortgage-backed securities product. Investors in the liabilities of ABACUS are alleged to have lost more than $1 billion.

Read: Perfect storm for U.S. mortgage-backed investors (2006)

The SEC’s complaint charged Goldman Sachs and Tourre with violations of Section 17(a) of the Securities Act of 1933, Section 10(b) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, and Exchange Act Rule 10b-5. The Commission is seeking injunctive relief, disgorgement of profits, prejudgment interest, and financial penalties.

Goldman Sachs settled in 2010 to the tune of $550 million.

Read: Goldman Sachs fined $22 million

The New York Times reports the regulator is “an agency till dogged by its failure to thwart the crisis, [so] the trial is a defining moment that follows one courtroom disappointment after another.” Those disappointments include a jury clearing a Citigroup employee in a mortgage bond trial in 2012.

Read: Citigroup headed to trial

“Their reputation for trying cases hangs in the balance,” Thomas A. Sporkin, a senior S.E.C. enforcement official until last year when he departed for the law firm Buckley Sandler, told the Times. “This is their opportunity to show Wall Street that they can prevail against an individual at trial.”

Read: SEC charges fake advisor with fraud

In pursuing the architects of the financial crisis, the SEC has charged only a few bank employees. Others include a former VP at Wells Fargo, former executives of San Francisco-based United Commercial Bank, and a Louisiana hedge fund manager. (The regulator has compiled its crisis-related enforcement actions here.)

As for Tourre, he’s enrolled in a doctoral economics program at the University of Chicago, reports the Times, and could face a fine or ban if found responsible for creating ABACUS. Goldman Sachs is paying for his defense.

Before his downfall, Tourre lived an opulent life, reports New York magazine: he was known for throwing fancy parties in his $4,000-a-month condo, and called himself “Fabulous Fab.”