Bloomberg is reporting that the Justice Department is considering whether to accuse Rabobank NA’s ex-Chief Executive Officer John Ryan, former general counsel Dan Weiss and its past compliance chief of obstructing U.S. bank examiners’ efforts to dig into the firm’s failures to prevent money laundering.

Reporters Jesse Hamilton and Tom Schoenberg based their report on information from two people with knowledge of the probe who asked not to be named because the investigation is ongoing.

“The potential charges could close a dark chapter for Rabobank Groep, a Netherlands banking titan with $723 billion of assets,” they write. “Thousands of miles away from its Dutch headquarters, California bank branches near the Mexican border became a pipeline for the profits of organized crime starting in 2009, according to the Justice Department. In February, the U.S. unit admitted guilt to felony conspiracy allegations and agreed to pay $369 million, including a $50 million OCC fine.”

Read the Bloomberg article.

An Atlanta jury found Claud “Tex” McIver guilty of felony murder on Monday in the fatal shooting of his wife, Diane McIver, while they were riding in an SUV in 2016.

McIver is a former Fisher & Phillips partner.

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reports: “Known as ‘The Fixer’ because of his ability to grease the wheels of bureaucracy and get things done, McIver appeared stunned as he was handcuffed by a Fulton County sheriff’s deputy and led from the courtroom following the verdict. McIver had lived a mostly charmed existence until the evening of September 25, 2016, when he shot his wife Diane in the back as they were being driven near Piedmont Park. He claimed it was an accident. Jurors didn’t buy it.”

The sentence carries a mandatory life sentence for the 75-year-old defendant.

“It’s unclear whether the jurors who leaned toward involuntary manslaughter knew they were accepting a deal that would likely send McIver away until death,” the Journal-Constitution reports in another article.

Read the Journal-Constitution article.

Dallas lawyer Tshombe Anderson had his niece obtain an internship at the U.S. Labor Department so she could snoop through claims files, learn the system and act as a “mole,” prosecutors say.

The Dallas Morning News reports that on Thursday a U.S. district judge sentenced Anderson to the maximum punishment of 10 years in prison and ordered him to pay more than $26 million in restitution minus what the government has already collected from him.

“Anderson stole patient information from over 200 injured federal workers and then used the information to fraudulently bill OWCP [workers’ comp], enriching himself and others with taxpayer dollars intended for the treatment of injured federal workers,” said Steven Grell, Special Agent in-Charge for the Dallas Regional Office of the U.S. Department of Labor’s Office of Inspector General.

Read the Dallas News article.

Individuals who are hoping for a preemptive pardon from President Trump for any role they may have had in criminal activity should be aware that they run a significant risk that acceptance of a pardon would be used by state prosecutors as an admission of guilt.

Writing for Slate.com, New York University School of Law professor Ryan Goodman explains that a president’s pardon power applies only to federal crimes, leaving that individual liable for state crimes that cover the same underlying conduct.

“Officials like New York’s [Attorney General Eric] Schneiderman may feel they have an ace in hand if they can walk into a state courthouse with a defendant’s admission of guilt implied by having accepted a presidential pardon,” writes Goodman. “This get-out-of-federal-jail card comes at a price.”

He cites a 1915 U.S. Supreme Court ruling that acceptance of a pardon carries with it a “confession of guilt.”

Read the Slate.com article.

A Texas jury found State Senator Carlos Uresti guilty on 11 felony charges — including fraud and money laundering — for his role as general counsel for a now-bankrupt oilfield services company that perpetrated a Ponzi scheme against its investors.

The Texas Tribune reports that Uresti could face a long prison sentence and fines amounting to millions of dollars.

“Uresti was charged last year in connection with FourWinds Logistics, a now-bankrupt oilfield services company that perpetrated a Ponzi scheme against its investors,” reports Emma Platoff. “Uresti served as general counsel for FourWinds and owned 1 percent of the company. He also earned commission for recruiting investors, according to court documents.”

Read the Tribune article.

Bloomberg Law is reporting that U.S. Special Counsel Robert Mueller has extracted a guilty plea from a former associate at Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom who admitted in court in Washington that he misled investigators in the Russian election meddling case.

Alex van der Zwaan admitted he misled investigators about the last time he talked with Rick Gates, who was indicted in October with Paul Manafort over their consulting work in Ukraine. But van der Zwaan was the first of those who didn’t enter into a cooperation agreement with the special counsel’s office, according to Bloomberg.

He faces as long as six months in jail under advisory guidelines.

Skadden said it terminated van der Zwaan’s employment in 2017 and has been cooperating with authorities.

Read the Bloomberg Law article.

A judge has put an end to the once-illustrious legal career of Raymond Ho, who became a partner at Arent Fox at the age of 33.

Above the Law reports on the sentencing of the one-time legal star  who the government referred to as a “prolific money launderer” who is alleged to have funneled $2.1 million through various accounts, including attorney trust accounts.

The sentencing memo summed up the case:

“After emigrating from Taiwan at a young age, he excelled in U.S. schools, earned two legal degrees, practiced law at some of the largest law firms in the country, and even opened his own patent law firm.

“The defendant, however, was not the upstart attorney his résumé would suggest. Rather, from at least March 2013 to February 2017, the defendant engaged in a large-scale money laundering scheme.”

Read the Above the Law article.

Former Dentons associate Michael Potere once said he wasn’t afraid of jail time for trying to extort his former employer, according to Above the Law, but now he has been sentenced to five months in prison.

Kathryn Rubino explains that Potere used access to a partner’s email account to download sensitive information about the firm. Then he threatened to release the information unless the firm gave him $210,000 and a piece of artwork.

Prosecutors had asked for a three-month prison sentence, but the U.S. district judge handling the case sentenced him to five months, plus a year of supervised release.

Read the Above the Law article.

A former in-house lawyer, accused of secretly videotaping nude and partially clothed female employees at his Florida company, has consented to be disbarred, reports the Tampa Bay Times.

James Patrick Stanton, formerly in-house lawyer with a Florida maintenance company, was alleged to have videotaped women showering, using the toilet and changing clothes in restrooms. A former IT employee of the company reported that he found videos on Stanton’s laptop in 2010 and told executives, but nothing was done.

After the IT employee left the company he gave evidence to police. But later the charges were dismissed after Stanton’s lawyers argued that the statute of limitations had expired, explains reporter Susan Taylor Martin.

Read the Tampa Bay Times article.

A former partner of a California law firm showed up at the firm’s holiday party and killed his ex-boss before turning the gun on himself, reports the Long Beach Press-Telegram.

Police named John Alexander Mendoza, 58, as the man who shot two colleagues, one fatally.

The incident occurred at the party held for Perona, Langer, Beck, Serbin and Harrison. Mendoza’s name had been removed from the firm’s name after he was fired in recent days.

Above the Law also reported on the incident: “Mendoza reportedly told all lower-level staff members to leave the building before he opened fired upon senior managing partner Major A. Langer and Ronald Beck, who ran day-to-day operations at the firm. Langer was shot in the upper body and died at the scene, while Beck was shot in the leg and had a bullet graze his stomach.”

Mendoza was found dead at the scene with a self-inflicted gunshot wound.

Read the Press-Telegram article.

Evan Greebel, former lawyer of “Pharma Bro” Martin Shkreli, was convicted Wednesday by a federal jury of conspiring with his ex-client to defraud investors, reports Newsweek.

Greebel, “who was an outside counsel to Shkreli’s former company, Retrophin Inc, was found guilty of conspiring to commit wire fraud and securities fraud when he helped Shkreli steal $11 million from a pharmaceutical company to pay back investors after the former pharma bro lost their money in risky investments,” writes Christina Zhao.

Prosecutors accused Greebel of conspiring with Shkreli by helping him devise sham settlement and consulting contracts to pay back investors, using Retrophin assets.

Read the Newsweek article.

Flamboyant lawyer Richard Luthmann may fancy himself a champion of the little guy, but federal prosecutors say he is little more than a “violent criminal and fraudster” who bilked customers in a scrap-metal, had a victim threatened at gunpoint, and took advantage of a blind client in a bid to hide the scheme, reports SIlive.com.

The FBI arrested the Staten Island lawyer on a slew of charges, including kidnapping, kidnapping conspiracy, money laundering, brandishing a firearm to commit a crime, aggravated identity theft and extortion conspiracy.

Vice reports that Luthman is “facing federal charges for allegedly running a fake scrap metal empire that involved setting up a blind man as the fall guy and extorting people at gunpoint. In fact, according to the 11-count indictment in that case, the bow-tie-wearing Luthmann may prove to be one of the most colorful—and dangerous—criminals in recent New York City lore.”

Read reports on the case:

SIlive.com

Vice

New York Post

A lawyer who spent six months on the run after pleading guilty in a $500 million Social Security fraud scheme is back in Kentucky after he was caught outside a Pizza Hut in Honduras, reports CBS News.

Eric Conn pleaded guilty in March to stealing from the federal government and bribing a judge to fix Social Security fraud cases, but a federal judge released Conn on $1.25 million bail. Conn then absconded.

Honduran authorities captured Conn and handed him over to the FBI for a private plane ride back to Lexington, Kentucky. The lawyer who billed himself as “Mr. Social Security” was sentenced in absentia last summer to a 12-year prison term — the maximum possible.

Read the CBS News article.

Reuters is reporting that a former partner at a major law firm in Washington pleaded guilty on Wednesday to charges that he tried to sell copies of sealed whistleblower lawsuits against corporations that he obtained while working at the U.S. Justice Department.

Reporter Nate Raymond writes that Jeffrey Wertkin was working at Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld LLP when he was arrested in January trying to sell an undercover federal agent one of the lawsuits while wearing a wig as a disguise, according to court papers.

As a former employee of the Justice Department, he had access to lawsuits filed by whistleblowers against companies on the government’s behalf to recover taxpayer funds paid out based on fraudulent claims. Prosecutors said he copied several whistleblower complaints and then tried to sell them for a “consulting fee.”

Read the Reuters article.

A former general counsel of insurer WellCare Health Plans Inc. has been sentenced to six months in prison for making a false statement to Florida’s Medicaid program as part of what prosecutors called a $35 million healthcare fraud scheme, Reuters reports.

A U.S. district judge in Tampa sentenced Thaddeus Bereday, who was indicted in 2011 along with four other former WellCare executive. The former GC pleaded guilty to a false statement charge in June, according to court records.

Reuters reporter Nate Raymond writes that Bereday, 52, was also sentenced to three years of supervised release during which he must spend one year in home confinement, prosecutors said. He was also ordered to pay a $50,000 fine.

Read the Reuters article.

Bloomberg Law reports that the judge overseeing Paul Manafort’s tax and money-laundering case in Washington had a stern warning for his lawyer: Stop with the sidewalk speeches.

“This is a criminal trial and not a public-relations campaign,” U.S. District Judge Amy Berman Jackson said at a hearing Thursday, according to reporters Andrew Harris and Tom Schoenberg.

The judge, threatening to impose a gag order, told the lawyers to do their “talking in the courtroom, and the pleadings, and not on the courthouse steps.”

Read the Bloomberg article.

Paul Manafort
Image by Disney | ABC Television Group

A little-noticed court filing unsealed this week as part of special counsel Robert S. Mueller III’s ongoing probe could have big consequences for his other targets — showing he’s willing to use suspects’ lawyers to provide evidence against them, according to The Washington Post.

An opinion by U.S. District Court Chief Judge Beryl A. Howell found that one of Manafort’s former lawyers could be compelled to testify to the grand jury. She found a “crime fraud” exception to the attorney-client privilege, writing:

When a person uses the attorney-client relationship to further a criminal scheme, the law is well established that a claim of attorney-client or work-product privilege must yield to the grand jury’s investigatory needs.

Above the Law reports (sourcing the National Law Journal) that the attorney in question is Melissa Laurenza, partner at Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld whose practice focuses on campaign law and lobbying registration.

Read the Washington Post article.

Within minutes of attorney Tom Pickert’s murder Wednesday morning at his Kansas City-area home, his colleagues in a recent case started worrying about their own safety, reports The Kansas City Star.

One lawyer had assisted Pickert in an effort to secure assets from the defendant in a multi-million dollar civil case that Pickert and his partner had won in July. Now, he said, he doesn’t walk the dog or get the mail since Pickert’s death.

Reporters Glenn E. Rice and Donald Bradley quote the victim’s associate: “We became pretty religious about setting the alarm system at home and I started looking over my shoulder. But I’m still going to the office. I’m not letting this change my life.”

And a judge in a civil case where Pickert secured a $5.7 million judgment sealed records of the case to prevent jurors from being identified.

Pickert, 39, was fatally shot just after he returned to his home in Brookside early Wednesday after walking his children to school.

Read The Kansas City Star‘s article.

Join Our LinkedIn Group

A former Dentons associate who was fired and then allegedly threatened to leak sensitive information taken from the email account of a managing director of the firm has taken a plea deal on a lesser charge to avoid spending more than two decades behind bars.

Above the Law reports that Michael Potere accepted the deal that included dismissal of an underlying indictments that included a charge of extortion. That charge carried a possible sentence of up to 20 years in prison.

“This summer, Potere was arrested and indicted on charges of extortion and attempted extortion affecting interstate commerce, as well as transmitting threatening communications with intent to extort,” according to reporter Staci Zaretsky. “At the time, the ex-Biglaw associate was represented by a public defender and faced up to 22 years in prison.”

Read the Above the Law article.

Join Our LinkedIn Group

Wilmington Trust Corp., the only financial institution to be criminally charged in connection with the federal bank bailout program, reached a $60 million settlement with prosecutors Tuesday just as the corporation and four former top executives were set to go to trial on bank fraud charges, the Associated Press reports.

After the bank reached a settlement, U.S. District Court Judge Richard Andrews postponed the trial for the former executives until March, finding they currently were not prepared to move forward without the bank as a co-defendant.

“Prosecutors accused Wilmington Trust, through its senior executives, of concealing the truth about the bank’s deteriorating commercial real estate loan portfolio from bank regulators, investors and the Securities and Exchange Commission,” writes reporter Randall Chase.

Read the AP article.