Indiana lawyer T. Edward Page was murdered at his home by a client, Hobart, Ind., police said late last week.

The Chicago Tribune reported that  a client of Page’s, William Landske, has been charged in the murder.

Page, an attorney with Thiros & Thiros in Merrillville, worked as Lake County public defender for the last 10 years, Marce Gonzalez Jr., chief public defender, said. Page submitted his notice of retirement Tuesday and was planning to finish out the month, he said.

Earlier in the week, another lawyer, Stephen Shapiro of Illinois, was shot to death in a separate case. His brother-in-law is in custody in that case.

Read the Chicago Tribune article.

The New York Post reports that the former lawyer who helped “Pharma Bro” Martin Shkreli defraud investors landed just one and a half years in prison Friday — but will have to fork over more than $10 million in restitution and forfeitures.

Brooklyn federal court Judge Kiyo Matsumoto said Evan Greebel’s conduct was “egregious” and he played a “crucial role” in Shkreli’s scheme to defraud his hedge-fund investors after he lost all their money in a bad trade.

In addition to the prison time, the disbarred attorney will have to pay $10,447,979 in restitution to Retrophin and forfeit $116,464.03 in ill-gotten gains to the government, writes reporter Emily Saul.

Greebel is a former partner at Kaye Scholer and Katten Muchin Rosenman.

Read the NY Post article.

Prosecutors in the Illinois murder case of Stephen Shapiro, a partner in Mayer Brown, say he was gunned down by his brother-in-law, reports the Chicago Tribune.

Police arrested Shapiro’s brother-in-law, John Gately III in connection with the slaying at the lawyer’s home.

A prosecutor said Shapiro’s wife, Joan Shapiro, had been financially supporting her brother and had recently argued with him about the management of his finances.

On the day of the shooting, Gately attempted to talk to his sister, but Shapiro refused him. Authorities said Gately then shot Shapiro, before trying to shoot Joan Shapiro. She escaped from the house.

Read the Tribune article.

Stephen Shapiro, known as “a superhero” among his fellow attorneys for his frequent appearances before the U.S. Supreme Court, was shot and killed in a domestic altercation Monday at his Chicago-area home, according to the Chicago Tribune.

“Shapiro’s slaying shook up legal circles from Chicago to Washington, with friends and colleagues recalling a man who had reached the apex of his profession yet maintained his modest tastes and unpretentious personality,” write reporters John Keilman and Kathy Routliffe.

Shapiro was a partner at Mayer Brown and founder and senior member of the firm’s appellate practice, according to information on the firm’s website. He argued 30 cases before the U.S. Supreme Court.

Police arrested a man in a Winnetka apartment in connection with the murder.

Read the Chicago Tribune article.

Senior U.S. District Judge T.S. Ellis III, presiding over the Paul Manafort trial, has a reputation of displaying a no-nonsense, sharp demeanor that sometimes stings the lawyers in his courtroom, reports The Washington Post.

“He has torn my head off in front of my wife multiple times,” said Kevin Mikolashek, who recently left the U.S. Attorney’s Office.

Reporter Rachel Weiner quotes defense lawyer John Zwerling, who says he warns lawyers who are new to the Alexandria, Va. court: “It’s important for him that everyone in the courtroom knows he is the smartest person in that courtroom, and just be aware that he usually is. So you better be on your A game.”

Weiner adds: “Ellis regularly interrupts trial testimony with his own questions and demands that certain lines of inquiry be cut short, clearing up ambiguity that defense attorneys hoped to create. More than one lawyer has tried to block him from doing so with pretrial motions or mid-case demands for a mistrial.”

Those attempts have been struck down, however.

Read the Post article.

Bloomberg Law is reporting that a virtual currency operator accused of running off with investor funds after a 2013 hack and lying to investigators has accepted a plea deal with federal prosecutors in New York.

Reporter Lydia Beyoud writes that Jon E. Montroll of Saginaw, Texas, faces up to 40 years in prison.

Manhattan U.S. Attorney Geoffrey S. Berman said in a July 23 statement accompanying the plea agreement that Montroll “repeatedly lied during sworn testimony and misled SEC staff to avoid taking responsibility for the loss of thousands of his customers’ bitcoins,” in 2013, Berman said.

Read the Bloomberg Law article.

Some former colleagues of the lawyer who was convicted of conspiracy to commit securities fraud and conspiracy to commit wire fraud in connection with the “Pharma Bro” case are asking the judge in his case for leniency.

Evan Greebel, formerly of Katten Muchin and Kaye Scholer, could face up to 20 years in prison for his role as outside counsel for Martin Shkreli’s pharmaceutical company Retrophin, according to Above the Law. Prosecutors alleged Greebel assisted Shkreli in using Retrophin’s assets to pay investors in unrelated hedge funds run by Shkreli through the use of phony settlement and consulting agreements and fraudulently backdating agreements.

“But his lawyers — he’s repped by Gibson Dunn — have submitted a sentencing memo asking Judge Kiyo Matsumoto for no jail time,” writes editor Kathryn Rubino. “Attached to the memo are some 180 letters asking for leniency, and quite a few from Greebel’s former Biglaw partners.”

Read the Above the Law article.

Ken Starr

A former football coach who lost his job at Baylor University had some harsh words for former Baylor president Ken Starr, but his strongest words are for Pepper Hamilton, whose investigation led to Baylor’s decision to part ways with almost anyone even tangentially involved in allegations of sexual misconduct by football players.

Above the Law details the saga, based in part on an interview with Baylor’s former defensive coordinator and interim head coach Phil Bennett published by the Fort Worth Star-Telegram.

“Bennett rips the firm as clueless about the basics of running a college football team — allegedly suggesting to him that the school’s lawyers should have gotten involved as soon as a student showed up late for practice — and prone to inserting some disturbing racial observations,” writes editor Joe Patrice.

Read the Above the Law article.

The former general counsel for the Oklahoma State Department of Health is accused of falsifying death threats against herself and has been charged in Oklahoma County district court, according to KWTV News 9 in Oklahoma City.

Julia Marie Ezell faces three counts of using a computer to send herself death threats and then falsely report a made-up crime. Ezell resigned as health department general counsel on Friday.

State officials said the emails were meant to look like they were coming from angry medical marijuana supporters. The health department recently adopted rules for the implementation of medical marijuana across the state.

Read the KWTV News 9 article.

The American Bar Association has posted a tax form that reveals a onetime staff member diverted about $1.3 million from the ABA over a period of eight years.

The ABA Journal reports that the organization became aware of the theft by a nonmanagerial staff member last September, according to the form. The employee was fired the next day, writes Debra Cassens Weiss.

ABA staff are cooperating with the investigation and have been in touch with law enforcement as recently as Tuesday.

An ABA official told the Journal that the theft was well-hidden with falsified documents, but the theft became apparent when the individual got more ambitious in attempts to divert more money.

Read the ABA Journal article.

Keila Ravelo, a former partner at Hunton & Williams and Willkie Farr & Gallagher, was disbarred in New York for approving payments of nearly $8 million to her ex-convict husband’s companies in exchange for “little or no services,” Bloomberg Law reports.

Ravelo’s disbarment was retroactive as of her November 2017 guilty plea to federal wire fraud and tax evasion charges.

Ravelo was accused in 2014 of conspiring to defraud Hunton, Willkie, and MasterCard by submitting false invoices for several million dollars to two litigation support vendors she and her husband controlled, a court found.

Sentencing is scheduled for September. A plea agreement calls for imprisonment for 48-72 months.

Read the Bloomberg Law article.

A former partner at a major U.S. law firm who spent two decades as a fugitive while avoiding charges that he ran a fraudulent investment scheme has pleaded guilty to carrying out a different scam while living in Massachusetts under an alias, according to Reuters.

Scott Wolas, 69, pleaded guilty in Boston federal court to defrauding 20 investors in two real estate projects out of $1.7 million while he was using someone else’s identity, Nate Raymond reports.

In the 1990s, Wolas was a litigator in the New York office of Hunton & Williams. Authorities said he fled about the time of a 1997 indictment in New York and turned up in Florida where he became a securities broker while using a college roommate’s name. When he was facing charges in Florida, he moved to Massachusetts, where he used various names while working as a real estate agent.

Read the Reuters article.

Government Executive reports that a former top legal adviser to the Immigration and Customs Enforcement bureau was sentenced to 48 months in prison for wire fraud and identity theft affecting aliens, the Justice Department announced on Thursday.

Reporter Charles S. Clark writes that “Raphael Sanchez, 44, of the ICE Office of Principal Legal Advisor based in the Pacific Northwest, had pleaded guilty in February to running a scheme to defraud aliens in various stages of immigration removal by using their personally identifiable information to open lines of credit and personal loans in their names. He would then manipulate their credit bureau files, transfer funds to himself and purchase goods for himself using credit cards issued in their names, [the Department of] Justice said.”

Sanchez admitted to using the agency’s computer database as well as paper files to steal the personal information.

Read the Government Executive article.

Vinson & Elkins partner Douglas E. McWilliams could face a felony charge after a boat he was operating on Lake Travis ran aground, injuring two colleagues who were taken to a hospital by helicopter.

The Austin American-Statesman reports that an investigator has accused McWilliams, a partner in the firm’s Houston office, of leaving the scene of the crash. The investigator said in an arrest affidavit that interviews led him to believe that McWilliams had been drinking prior to the crash.

McWilliams’ lawyer, however, countered with affidavits from fellow lawyers, including the firm’s chairman, saying that he was not drunk at any point that night, according to reporter Tony Plohetski.

Read the American-Statesman article.

A former attorney in Texas has been sentenced to five years in prison after pleading guilty to insurance fraud and barratry, or litigation for profit, The Fort Worth Star-Telegram reported.

The Tarrant County district attorney said that Richard Kent Livesay schemed to bill insurers for fraudulent hailstorm damage to roofs without the knowledge or consent of homeowners.

The DA’s office said Livesay would have received more than $300,000 in fraudulent payments if his fraud hadn’t been discovered first by investigators from the Texas Department of Insurance.

Livesay also had to surrender his law license and to provide restitution to his victims, the report says.

Read the Star-Telegram article.

A Georgia lawyer who represented a woman in a divorce told colleagues he was worried about his client’s ex-husband, and a few hours later the man murdered him, according to police.

The Atlanta Journal Constitution reports that Antonio Benjamin Mari, 41, died from multiple gunshots Wednesday afternoon, two hours after the final divorce hearing in a Bartow County court.

“After shooting Mari, [Walter Samuel] Radford called his ex-wife, Cindy Radford, to tell her he’d killed the attorney, according to Lt. M.E. Bettikofer with Cartersville police. From there, Walter Radford, 33, allegedly broke into his ex-wife’s house and shot himself while no one else was home. He was found dead in the Willow Bend Drive home at 2:40 p.m. Wednesday,” reports Alexis Stevens.

Mari had worked nearly 18 years as a high school history teacher before becoming a lawyer.

Read the Journal Constitution article.

Three women have filed a federal class action lawsuit claiming that the Travis County District Attorney’s office and the Austin Police Department have violated the constitutional rights of women and discriminated based on gender in the manner in which they handle sexual assault cases.

The lawsuit notes that while more than 1,000 women report a sexual assault to Austin police each year, the number of cases actually taken to trial annually are in the single digits, according to a post on the website of Androvett Legal Media & Marketing.

The lawsuit alleges that Travis County DA Margaret Moore has ratified the discriminatory policies publicly, making statements that acquaintance rapes are really more “traumatic occurrences” than criminal acts.  Moore has also indicated that the testing of the backlog of thousands of rape kits in Austin is for “informational purposes” and not for prosecution, confirming her office’s intent not to seek justice for those victims.

The lawsuit also notes that the Austin Police Department’s sexual assault unit at one time had a wall with photos of victims whose claims had been “debunked” by officers as “trophies of their investigations which determined allegations by purported victims were unsubstantiated.”

Finally, the lawsuit notes that while women make up 91 percent of sexual assault victims, the only case taken to trial in 2017 involved a male victim.  In that instance, the Travis County Sheriff’s Office and the DA were aware of allegations by multiple women in previous years against the same perpetrator, but those cases were never prosecuted.

“[The] unconstitutional conduct by Defendants subjects both victims and all the women of Austin to continued risk at the hands of perpetrators who are never held accountable,” according to the complaint, filed in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Texas. The lawsuit, which seeks class-action status, claims that the dominant culture and ongoing and historical failures by local law enforcement to pursue sexual assault cases establishes a conspiracy to violate the civil rights of an estimated 6,000 sexual assault victims, while also violating their constitutional rights for equal protection.

“It is shocking that the vast majority of women who survive sexual assault are provided so little protection or recourse, and are essentially blamed for the refusal of law enforcement to seek justice in their cases,” says Jennifer Ecklund of Thompson & Knight and lead counsel for the plaintiffs. “Women go to authorities in order to seek justice and to protect other women, but the policies and practices of law enforcement instead re-traumatize survivors while allowing their attackers to walk free.”

The case is Amy Smith, Julie Ann Nitsch and Marina Conner v. City of Austin, Travis County District Attorney Margaret Moore, Rosemary Lehmberg and Travis County, Texas.

Reuters is reporting that federal prosecutors charged a vice president at Goldman Sachs Group Inc. on Thursday with insider trading by illegally using non-public information about several companies that were clients of the investment bank.

Woojae “Steve” Jung, a 37-year-old Korean citizen, is charged with trading illegally on confidential information relating to upcoming transactions and merger negotiations that he was privy to through his job. Reporter Brendan Pierson writes that Jung made more than $130,000 through the scheme.

Prosecutors said Jung conducted his trades through a brokerage account in the name of a friend living in South Korea. The brokerage account was accessed from internet addresses that were traced to Jung, according to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.

Read the Reuters report.

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The Washington Post is reporting that federal prosecutors investigating President Trump’s personal lawyer Michael Cohen are poised to receive on Wednesday 1 million files from three of his cellphones seized last month, according to a filing submitted to the court Tuesday night by special master Barbara Jones.

Jones said investigators have already been given access to nearly 300,000 pieces of potential evidence seized from Cohen’s office and residences in an April raid, according to reporters Philip Bump and Mark Berman.

Cohen’s attorneys initially said thousands of the seized documents might be covered by attorney-client privilege, but Jones noted that so far only 252 items have been flagged by Cohen’s or President Trump’s attorneys as privileged.

Read the Post article.

The NRA called on a self-described “aging Jewish hippie” who doesn’t own a gun and who frequently defends drug defendants to speak at the organization’s recent annual convention — because he’s a drug attorney who understands how the nation’s Byzantine drug laws could threaten gun owners.

Gerry Goldstein said he was as surprised as anyone to receive the invitation, reports The Dallas Morning News.

Reporter David Tarrant writes that federal law could cause pot users to lose their right to carry firearms, even in states where marijuana possession is legal. And the NRA could see a natural alliance between gun rights activists and people like Goldstein.

The U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives recently sent a letter to all federally licensed gun dealers, stating: “Any person who uses or is addicted to marijuana, regardless of whether his or her state has passed legislation authorizing marijuana use for medical purposes … is prohibited by federal law from possessing firearms or ammunition.”

Read the Dallas News article.