Doesn’t it seem a little early to start reliving the ’80s? Well, they’re back. Levine’s book is only one of several that promise to resurrect those booming, scandal-ridden days on Wall Street. Two others, one by a Wall Street Journal editor and another by two Washington Post staffers, recount the insider-trading network and how prosecutors and the Securities and Exchange Commission moved to uncover it. But the sight of Levine, granting interviews in his $1 million Park Avenue apartment and wearing expensive suits, raised the question of whether the punishments for Levine, junk-bond king Michael Milken, speculator Ivan Boesky and others were severe enough. And while Wall Street seems more chaste these days, have the prosecutions really served as a deterrence in light of the unfolding Salomon Brothers Treasury-bond scandal? Said one stockbroker: “If I could make $10 million and live in a country-club-like prison for a couple of years, I’d do it, too.”

The issue isn’t drawn that neatly, but Levine’s public emergence did lift a lot of eyebrows. While not as well known as Milken or Boesky, it was Levine who assembled a network of investment bankers and lawyers to trade on inside stock tips. When he was caught in 1986 he was forced to return $11.6 million in profits, fined $360,000 and sentenced to jail. “I had to start over with virtually nothing,” he said last week. “My money was used to pay fines. I’ve had a difficult time.” Well, not quite nothing, of course. Tan and fit, Levine, 39, certainly seems the very picture of an affluent investment banker. He and his wife and two children live in a six-room coop. A picture in New York magazine, which excerpted his book, captures Levine and his wife, Laurie, cavorting at a baby grand piano, a scene right out of “Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous.”

As for making a living, Levine has been barred from the securities industry for life. But he has started a financial advisory firm called Adasar Group Inc., after his children, Adam and Sarah. That enterprise isn’t off to an auspicious start. In its report two weeks ago, “60 Minutes” said that Levine, while playing financial matchmaker, persuaded two businessmen to pay $150,000 in upfront fees to obtain loans from a disreputable firm for a housing project. The loans never materialized and Levine himself pocketed $35,000 in finder’s fees. In a puzzling response, Levine said that it was largely the borrowers’ responsibility to check out the reputation of the prospective lenders.

Levine seems almost down on his heels when compared with Martin Siegel, another of the scandal’s major figures. A former star dealmeister at Drexel and Kidder, Peabody, Siegel became better known when prosecutors disclosed that he had accepted briefcases stuffed with about $700,000 from Ivan Boesky, a payoff for inside tips. After implicating others, Siegel got the lightest jail sentence of the biggies, serving only two months. He also paid back more than $9 million in ill-gotten gains to settle the charges.

But Siegel had the foresight to look after his housing needs. Shortly before his guilty plea in 1987, Siegel sold his Connecticut house and Manhattan apartment and bought a mansion for nearly $3 million in affluent Ponte Vedra Beach, Fla., just south of Jacksonville. Partially hidden from view, the house sits on a dune and sports finely manicured lawns. The eight-acre property includes a 900-foot stretch of Atlantic Ocean beachfront–plenty of room for his two golden retrievers to romp. Siegel’s neighbors reportedly include such notables as supermodel Kim Alexis and Sears, Roebuck chair man Edward Brennan. If his housing is luxurious, Siegel’s work seems modest. To fulfill his community-service sentence, he’s working at Florida Community College Jacksonville for free, teaching summer computer classes to disadvantaged high-school students and helping to get a resource center off the ground. After two years, says his lawyer, Jed Rakoff, Siegel will look for a paying job. As for a book, Rakoff says, “I feel confident he won’t take the path of Mr. Levine.”

Like Levine, Ivan Boesky can’t seem to get the financial world out of his system. Boesky, whose felicitous greed-is-healthy speech neatly summed up the 1980s, is said by friends to be considering raising money overseas to invest. His legal settlement barred the former stock speculator from ever doing similar work in this country. Released in April 1990 after serving two years in prison, Boesky now lives in Manhattan after reportedly separating from his wife. He’s been seen dressed in his trademark dark suits; gone are the scraggly beard and flowing hair grown in prison. How much money he has is a mystery. He paid $100 million in fines and restitution but his worth had been estimated at $200 million. A pending suit contends he squirreled away $25 million. One lawyer, trying to dispel the notion that Boesky was living well, said he has only a “handful of assets left and no substantial sources of income.”

Across the country, in Pleasanton, Calif, Michael Milken is teaching-tutoring fellow prison inmates in math. Milken began his 10-year term in March. According to his newest lawyer, Alan Dershowitz, he’s doing menial work, like scrubbing toilets (for up to $1.40 an hour), and spending a lot of time on the phone with lawyers. Regulations permit Milken to wear his own clothes but not his all-too-well-known hairpiece, a prison spokeswoman says. While Milken received the stiffest prison term, the judge in the case ruled earlier this year that he would be eligible for parole after about three years. Milken paid $600 million in fines and penalties but his remaining assets are the subject of speculation. In one year alone he made $550 million at Drexel Burnham, and it has been suggested that he has millions of dollars buried in partnerships that he set up during his high-rolling junk-bond days.

Does crime pay? Of course, the law certainly doesn’t demand that criminals be left impoverished and forbidden to make new lives for themselves. And prison time is no vacation, no matter how progressive the institution. Bruce Baird, who helped prosecute the Wall Street cases and is now in private practice, thinks the sentences were ,‘sufficiently strong to get people’s attention." Investment firms and stock exchanges have tightened their self-policing and potential wrongdoers probably think twice knowing they could get a jail term. Yet a bad taste develops whenever high-profile, white-collar felons–recall the Watergate cast–end up on TV and make money from books and speeches. Indeed, the more cynical believe that only the disappearance of big-money takeover deals–not a shift in ethics–has deterred insider traders. To one Wall Street broker, the Salomon scandal just adds more proof to his belief. “People on the Street are always trying to find ways to make that extra dollar.” How far they will go to make it is still open to debate.

PHOTO:Dennis Levine//WALLY McNAMEE–NEWSWEEK

At Drexel Burnham, Levine was earning $2 million a year as a mergers specialist–until he got arrested.

He served 17 months in prison and was forced to return $11.6 million in profits.

Now he’s promoting a new book and tying to build a financial-advisory firm. He lives in a Park Avenue coop.

PHOTO:Ivan Boesky/MARIO RUIZ–PICTURE GROUP

Trading on takeover stocks, Boesky amassed more than $100 million, a big chunk thanks to tips.

He served two years of a three-year prison term and disgorged $100 million in fines and restitution.

Living in Manhattan, he is now said to be considering raising money overseas for investments.

From 1983 to 1987, Drexel paid Milken $1.1 billion for selling junk bonds and funding takeovers.

He was given 10 years in jail, the toughest of the sentences, and paid $600 million in fines and restitution.

He began his sentence in March at a minimum-security prison in California. Parole is possible in three years.

A star mergers specialist, Siegel was earning millions when he got caught in the scheme.

After naming others, he got a light two-month jail term and gave back some $9 million to settle charges.

He now lives in a posh waterfront house near Jacksonville, Fla., and does community-service work.