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White Collar
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August 23, 2024
Cape Cod Bookkeeper To Cop To $1.3M Embezzlement
The longtime bookkeeper of a Cape Cod flooring business has agreed to plead guilty to embezzling more than $1.3 million from the company, Massachusetts federal prosecutors announced.
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August 22, 2024
Panel Backs Sex Misconduct Findings About Ex-Alaska Judge
A judicial conference review panel affirmed Thursday the Ninth Circuit Judicial Council's finding that former U.S. District Judge Joshua Kindred of the District of Alaska had an "inappropriately sexualized relationship" with a law clerk and created a hostile work environment.
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August 22, 2024
5th Circ. Says No Tolling For COVID, Trims Atty's Conviction
The Fifth Circuit on Thursday knocked a false statement charge off Houston attorney Richard Plezia's conviction for his involvement in a multimillion-dollar ambulance-chasing kickback scheme but upheld the rest of his conviction, including conspiracy to defraud the U.S. by helping another lawyer evade federal income taxes.
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August 22, 2024
3rd Circ. Denies Liberian Bank Whistleblower's Asylum Bid
The Third Circuit ruled Thursday that a Liberian man can't claim asylum despite having "suffered horrors" after unearthing a fraud scheme involving Liberian government officials' relatives and refusing a politician's bribe, saying he did not show evidence that his alleged perpetrators targeted him for having an anti-corruption political opinion.
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August 22, 2024
Philly Contractor Gets Probation For Taking Union Money
A Philadelphia contractor who accepted union money embezzled by John Dougherty, former business manager of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local 98, to renovate the labor leader's personal properties was sentenced to three years of probation Thursday.
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August 22, 2024
Debtors Claim $3M Award Is Tainted By Fraud In China
Two Chinese debtors said to owe nearly $3 million under an arbitral award issued to an investment company in the People's Republic of China have asked a California federal court to vacate an order enforcing the award earlier this year, saying the company participated in criminal fraud.
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August 22, 2024
Feds Seize $5M In Crypto 'Pig Butchering' Scams
Federal prosecutors in North Carolina snagged nearly $5 million in cryptocurrency that they said on Thursday came from crooks masquerading as lovers, luring starry-eyed paramores into phony investments, in what's known as a "pig butchering" scam.
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August 22, 2024
Ex-MiMedx Sales Rep Says Fraud Schemes Pushed Her Out
A former employee of controversial biotech firm MiMedx who was sued for joining a competitor earlier this year hit the company back with a counterclaim Tuesday charging that she was forced out for refusing to go along with the company's alleged flouting of U.S. Food and Drug Administration regulations and rampant overbilling schemes.
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August 22, 2024
Ex-Morgan Stanley Representative Concedes SEC Suit
A former Morgan Stanley representative who was criminally convicted in a $4.8 million Ponzi scheme has conceded in a suit brought by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, saying he agrees with the agency that judgment should be issued against him.
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August 22, 2024
Smuggling Suspect Arrested Over '22 Migrant Deaths In Texas
A Guatemalan national was arrested Wednesday in his home country at U.S. officials' request for his alleged role in a human smuggling operation blamed for the deaths of 53 migrants who were found in a tractor-trailer in Texas in 2022, federal prosecutors announced Thursday.
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August 22, 2024
Feds Ask For $395M Forfeiture In Bitcoin Fog Case
A D.C. federal judge said he was inclined to side with prosecutors seeking a $395 million forfeiture order for convicted Bitcoin Fog operator Roman Sterlingov, at least as a preliminary step ahead of the 35-year-old's sentencing for money laundering.
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August 22, 2024
Feds, Ex-Detroit Mayor Spar Over Restitution, Residency
Federal prosecutors and former Detroit mayor Kwame Kilpatrick are clashing over restitution, with the feds seeking to collect some $6,700 the Michigan Department of Treasury uncovered and Kilpatrick claiming the money is off limits, challenging how much he owes and pushing to have the case sent to Georgia.
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August 22, 2024
Nadine Menendez's Bribery Trial Delayed Until 2025
The bribery trial of former U.S. Sen. Robert Menendez's wife is delayed until at least January because she is being treated for cancer, a New York federal judge ruled Thursday.
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August 22, 2024
NY AG Tells Appeals Court To Uphold $465M Trump Judgment
Donald Trump has barely challenged the extensive proof of financial statement lies undergirding a $465 million civil fraud judgment against him and his co-defendants, New York's attorney general said in an appeals brief looking to preserve the bench verdict.
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August 22, 2024
Feds Accuse NYC Man Of Acting As Chinese Agent
Manhattan federal prosecutors have accused a naturalized U.S. citizen of acting as an agent of the People's Republic of China and relaying intelligence to the Chinese government.
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August 22, 2024
Tom Girardi Takes The Stand In His Criminal Fraud Trial
Disbarred attorney Tom Girardi took the stand Thursday in his California federal fraud trial and denied stealing from any of his clients, while also showing a strong grasp of past events and people but claiming to have no memory of the trial's witnesses and key moments, or to even know his own lawyer's name.
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August 22, 2024
Insurer, Atty Drop Case Linked To Bogus Check Scheme
An insurance firm has agreed to drop its claim seeking a declaration from a Washington federal court that it is not on the hook to cover a Seattle-area solo practitioner over an alleged counterfeit check scheme, after the bank and attorney settled their underlying dispute.
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August 22, 2024
Army Adviser Gets 12 Years For Scamming Gold Star Families
A former New Jersey financial counselor with the U.S. Army and a major in the U.S. Army Reserve was sentenced to 151 months in prison after pleading guilty to defrauding Gold Star families and other related crimes, the U.S. attorney's office announced.
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August 22, 2024
Mike Lynch's Path From Tech Founder To DOJ Target
Friends and colleagues paid tribute to Mike Lynch following his death in a yachting accident on Thursday, hailing the British tech entrepreneur for the decades he spent furthering the industry despite the legal troubles that threatened to overshadow his career.
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August 22, 2024
Crypto Lobbyist Hit With FTX Campaign Finance Charges
Manhattan federal prosecutors announced Thursday that Michelle Bond, a crypto industry lobbyist and the girlfriend of convicted former FTX executive Ryan Salame, has been charged with getting the now-defunct digital asset exchange to illegally finance her unsuccessful 2022 congressional campaign.
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August 22, 2024
'Beloved By Everyone': Attys Recall Clifford Chance's Morvillo
Clifford Chance LLP partner Christopher Morvillo, who died this week after a luxury yacht he was on sank off the coast of Sicily, is being remembered not only as a lion of the legal community but also as an "extraordinary human being" and a "Renaissance man" who was devoted to his family.
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August 22, 2024
Mike Lynch's Body Recovered From Yacht Wreck
Mike Lynch, founder of technology company Autonomy, died when a yacht he was aboard sank off the Sicilian coast, his family confirmed Friday, after a trip the entrepreneur had reportedly chartered with his legal team to celebrate their victory in a U.S. fraud case.
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August 21, 2024
FTX's Salame Says Feds Broke Deal Not To Probe Girlfriend
Former FTX executive Ryan Salame urged a New York federal judge Wednesday to either vacate his May conviction or stop federal prosecutors from investigating his domestic partner Michelle Bond for related political campaign-finance offenses, saying prosecutors induced his guilty plea by promising not to probe Bond.
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August 21, 2024
Hunter Biden Can't Link Trauma, Drug Abuse To Tax Charges
Hunter Biden can't tell jurors in his criminal tax trial that traumatic events like his brother's death caused his addiction, which led to a diminished mental capacity and his failure to pay taxes, a California federal judge said Wednesday, noting the information was irrelevant and not backed by expert opinion.
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August 21, 2024
Girardi Faked Dementia Symptoms, Neurologist Testifies
A neurologist with Vanderbilt University testified Wednesday in Tom Girardi's criminal fraud trial in California federal court that the disbarred attorney was likely exaggerating his cognitive problems in late 2020 just as his law firm imploded into bankruptcy and his legal problems mounted because he believed it would be "beneficial."
Expert Analysis
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Parsing FY 2024 DOJ Criminal Healthcare Fraud Enforcement
While the U.S. Department of Justice's Criminal Division's strike force on healthcare fraud enforcement action shows an impressive doubling of criminal indictments, a closer look at the data offers important clues about underlying trends, including the comparably modest, accompanying increase in associated intended loss, say Roderick Thomas and Kathleen Cooperstein at Wiley.
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FTC Drives Crackdown On Connected Cars' Data Privacy Risk
After the Federal Trade Commission's warning to automakers about data privacy, which continues to emerge as a national concern, automakers must carefully examine their data collection, use and retention practices, say Catherine Castaldo and Michael Rubayo at Reed Smith.
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Jarkesy May Thwart Consumer Agencies' Civil Penalty Power
The U.S. Supreme Court's ruling in U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission v. Jarkesy not only implicates future SEC administrative adjudications, but those of other agencies that operate similarly — and may stymie regulators' efforts to levy civil monetary penalties in a range of consumer protection enforcement actions, say attorneys at Holland & Knight.
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Lessons From Recent SEC Cyber Enforcement Actions
The recent guidance by the SEC's Division of Corporation Finance is helpful to any company facing a cybersecurity threat, but just as instructive are the warnings raised by the SEC's recent enforcement actions against SolarWinds, R.R. Donnelley and Intercontinental Exchange, say attorneys at O'Melveny.
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Trump's Best Hush Money Appeal Options Still Likely To Fail
The two strongest potential arguments former President Donald Trump could raise in appealing his New York hush money conviction seem promising at first, but precedent strongly suggests they will still ultimately fail — though, of course, Trump's unique position could lead to surprising results, says former New York Supreme Court Justice Ethan Greenberg, now at Anderson Kill.
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2 Vital Trial Principles Endure Amid Tech Advances
Progress in trial technologies in the last 10 years has been transformative for courtroom presentations, but two core communication axioms are still relevant in today's world of drone footage evidence and 3D animations, say Adam Bloomberg and Lisa Walters at IMS Legal Strategies.
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Inside OCC's Retail Nondeposit Investment Products Refresh
In addition to clarifying safe and sound risk management practices generally, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency's revised booklet on retail nondeposit investment products updates its guidance around certain sales practices in light of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission's adoption of Regulation Best Interest, say attorneys at Debevoise.
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5 Defense Lessons From Prosecutors' Recent Evidence Flubs
The recent dismissal of Alec Baldwin’s involuntary manslaughter charges, and the filing of an ethics complaint against a former D.C. prosecutor, both provide takeaways for white collar defense counsel who suspect that prosecutors may be withholding or misrepresenting evidence, say Anden Chow at MoloLamken and Jonathan Porter at Husch Blackwell.
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Mirror, Mirror On The Wall, Is My Counterclaim Bound To Fall?
A Pennsylvania federal court’s recent dismissal of the defendants’ counterclaims in Morgan v. Noss should remind attorneys to avoid the temptation to repackage a claim’s facts and law into a mirror-image counterclaim, as this approach will often result in a waste of time and resources, says Matthew Selmasska at Kaufman Dolowich.
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Why The SEC Is Targeting Short-And-Distort Schemes
The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission's recent crackdown on the illegal practice of short-and-distort trades highlights the urgent need for public companies to adopt proactive measures, including pursuing private rights of action, say attorneys at Baker McKenzie.
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6 Factors That Can Make For A 'Nuclear' Juror
Drawing from recent research that examines the rise in nuclear verdicts, Ken Broda-Bahm at Persuasion Strategies identifies a few juror characteristics most likely to matter in assessing case risk and preparing for jury selection — some of which are long-known, and others that are emerging post-pandemic.
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DOJ Paths To Limit FARA Fallout From Wynn's DC Circ. Win
After the D.C. Circuit’s recent Attorney General v. Wynn ruling, holding that the government cannot compel retroactive registration under the Foreign Agents Registration Act, the U.S. Department of Justice has a few options to limit the decision’s impact on enforcement, say attorneys at MoFo.
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Series
Playing Dungeons & Dragons Makes Me A Better Lawyer
Playing Dungeons & Dragons – a tabletop role-playing game – helped pave the way for my legal career by providing me with foundational skills such as persuasion and team building, says Derrick Carman at Robins Kaplan.
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Unpacking Executive Privilege, Contempt In Recent Cases
The U.S. House of Representatives’ recent move to hold Attorney General Merrick Garland in contempt of Congress is the latest example in a growing trend of executive privilege disputes, and serves as a warning to private citizens and corporate leaders who are in communication with the president, says Kristina Moore at Womble Bond.
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Bankruptcy Trustees Need More FinCEN Guidance
Recent FinCEN consent orders in two North Carolina bankruptcy cases show that additional guidance is necessary for most types of fiduciaries overseeing bankruptcy estates or other insolvency vehicles, say Brian Shaw and David Doyle at Cozen O’Connor.