Falcone’s folly

Philip Falcone’s street fighter instincts and penchant for ultra-risky investments helped catapult him into the gilded club of Wall Street’s elite. But his winning streak ended in Washington, where the founder of Harbinger Capital Partners and former professional hockey player has been bodychecked by regulators.

LightSquared, Harbinger’s $3 billion investment, fell into bankruptcy last week after a dramatic inside-the-Beltway battle to create a wireless network that would compete with titans AT&T and Verizon Wireless. The company was an ambitious bet on unproven technology, and it ran into major technical hurdles. Devices on the proposed network were found to interfere with the Global Positioning System crucial to military and aviation safety. But Falcone’s plan to turn junk airwaves into a goldmine could have worked, observers say, if he had come prepared with a far more low-tech set of tools: The political and lobbying skills needed to close a deal in the nation’s capitol.