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District Court Orders the Government to Identify Documents for Use at Trial
One problem faced by defense counsel in many white collar crime prosecutions is the massive number of documents, and the approach of prosecutors to simply say, "Here they are, you figure out what is (and is not) important." The end result of a long-term grand jury investigation may be that hundreds of thousands of pages…
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Follow the Bouncing Ball for This Potential Conflict
The prosecution of former Illinois Governor George Ryan may take an interesting turn that raises issues of legal ethics related to his defense counsel from large firm Winston & Strawn and a defense witness who, at this point in time, is the Acting United States Attorney for the Southern District of Illinois. This one is…
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The Libby Website — New Motion to Dismiss the Indictment
The legal defense fund for I. Lewis Libby has a website (www.scooterlibby.com) with information about Libby, a list of the fund’s Advisory Committee that includes a number of former administration officials and senators, and links to recent headlines. The fund’s trustee is G. Michael Green, a tax lawyer at Dickstein Shapiro in Washington, D.C. The…
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Fannie Mae Internal Investigation Report
Mortgage giant Fannie Mae released the report of an internal investigation led by former Senator Warren Rudman (and his law firm, Paul Weiss) on the company’s accounting problems that came to light in 2004. The report indicates that there were consistent problems over a number of years in how the company manipulated its accounting for…
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NACDL Conference
WHITE COLLAR CRIME CONFERENCE – NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF CRIMINAL DEFENSE LAWYERS (NACDL) WHERE: PHILADELPHIA WHEN: MAY 3-6, 2006 DETAILS: SEE HERE The Practice of White Collar Criminal Defense "will have seasoned white collar lawyers and professionals share their insight on how to represent white collar defendants in a wide array of cases. This…
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Oops, I Forgot to Get a License to Practice Law
Radioshack Inc. CEO David Edmondson resigned from the company after the revelation that he padded his resume by claiming to have received a B.S. degree when in fact he only received a degree requiring three years of study. That bit of resume-padding pales in comparison to what Michael Watson pulled off for nearly twenty years. …
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SEC Settles Xerox Audit Fraud Charges with Four KPMG Accountants
The SEC settled its securities fraud case related to improper accounting at Xerox with the four remaining defendants, all of whom were partners at the company’s outside auditor at the time, KPMG. The four are: Ronald Safran, engagement partner on the Xerox audit for 1998 and 1999; Michael Conway, senior engagement partner for 2000; Anthony…
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“Star Witness” In Campbell Trial Now on Cross
Georgia businessman Ronnie Thornton, described by the Atlanta Journal-Constitution (here) as the government’s star witness in the prosecution of former Atlanta Mayor Bill Campbell, completed his direct testimony. Thornton testified that he provided Campbell with over $125,000 in "campaign contributions" in the names of fictitious contributors in exchange for a $300 million dirt hauling contract…
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Lerach and Weiss Avoid Indictment But the Law Firm May Not
Prominent plaintiff class action attorneys William Lerach and Melvyn Weiss have dodged a bullet with the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Central District of California reportedly deciding not to pursue criminal charges against them related to secret payments to representative plaintiffs in class actions. In 2005, Seymour Lazar was indicted for accepting kickbacks from the…
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NACDL Issues Attorney-Client Privilege Statement
The National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers (NACDL) issued a statement on Corporate Attorney-Client Privilege here The statement urges "[c]ollection of reliable data by DOJ" and "[g]uidelines for waiver at all enforcement agencies/reform of memos." In asking for reform of the Thompson Memo, the Statement calls for DOJ to provide a "[a] statement…
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