Ex-Wall Street honcho Harry Wilson, the GOP's candidate for state controller, was a partner in a firm that invested millions in the nation's toxic subprime mortgage market.

The revelation comes just weeks after Wilson compared the subprime mortgage meltdown to what he said was a looming pension crisis for the state.

"Politicians are to public pensions as lax underwriting standards were to the mortgage crisis - the great enablers, pursuing short-term gain at a huge long term cost," he wrote in a campaign paper in early September.

Records show that Wilson's hedge fund - Silver Point Capital - at one point owned as much as a 10% stake in Accredited Home Lenders, a San Diego firm that was a top player in the subprime industry before it went bust and declared bankruptcy last year.

"They were certainly right in the middle of it," Sam Rogers, mortgage industry analyst at the Center for Responsible Lending, said about Accredited.