Prominent Lawyer/Alleged Grifter Denied Bail

Unsurprisingly, Marc Dreier, who has been accused of over $100 million in fraud, was denied bail yesterday. According to the NY Times, prosecutors say the once-prominent lawyer "used guile, a box of cellphones and a series of phony Web sites and e-mail addresses to steal more than $380 million." A judge agreed that Dreier is a flight risk (the feds think he has assets hidden overseas), ignoring his defense lawyer Gerald Shargel's suggestion of house arrest under two guards—and making his elderly mother and teenaged stepson responsible for $10 million bond. Shargel was also unhappy because the Yale- and Harvard Law-educated Dreier is under "24-hour lockdown until [prison officials] determine whether he's a gang member." Which means he's "being held alone in cell 24 hours a day with no telephone calls, no visitors and no reading material."