Results tagged “lawyer”

Gov. David Paterson followed former Mayor Rudy Giuliani's lead yesterday, when he denounced plans to hold the trial for Kalid Shaikh Mohammed and four other suspected terrorists in New York.

Taking cheap shots at the overweight prosecutor in court can be costly: Defense lawyer Raphael Scotto, 62, has been fined $2,500 and barred from city administrative court for mocking husky prosecutor Victor Muallem and making other inappropriate remarks. According to court papers obtained by the Post, Muallem was squeezing between two desks during a sexual-harassment hearing when Scotto cracked, "Tough fit, there, huh?" Real mature.

Six months into her job at an NYC law firm, a woman who would only identify herself as "Karin" was terminated. She relocated to St. Louis, Mo., and began studying for the bar exam while staying busy with a food blog, STL Meal Deals. Money was tight; she was living on $405 a week from unemployment benefits from New York, so she thought she'd try generating a little side money by signing up for Google AdSense, which pays bloggers to host ads on their sites and sends checks when their earnings hit $100. It was a pittance that would cost her dearly.

On the police scanners (now on Gothamist Newsmap), there have been multiple reports of an "escaped prisoner" from 100 Centre Street in lower Manhattan, which is the Criminal Court Building. Now it turns out that the prisoner escaped because he was dressed so well that he looked like a lawyer!

A federal judge in Brooklyn excoriated a high profile defense lawyer in court yesterday after the jury handed down guilty verdicts on 12 counts of conspiring to threaten and bribe witnesses and possessing illegal wiretapping equipment. Robert Simels, 62, was defending a powerful Guyanese drug lord when he got caught on tape telling a former gang member that certain witnesses should "just fall off the face of the Earth... I'm gonna leave it to you to figure out what's going to be best to get to him." Yesterday Judge John Gleeson said that Simels crossed "a very bright line... into what is flat-out forbidden." Simels had unsuccessfully argued that when he talked about ways to "neutralize the witness" he was just talking "street" to the gang member because "Guyana is a Third World country. They sometimes speak in a very unappealing fashion, so I spoke down in a manner he would appreciate." Simels, who once represented the Jets' Mark Gastineau, faces disbarment and between 12 and 15½ years in jail. He's been put on house arrest and has to wear an electronic ankle bracelet until his sentencing in November.

A high-profile Manhattan defense lawyer took the stand yesterday to defend himself against charges that he hired a former gang member to threaten witnesses, their relatives and their lovers, and to bribe them to lie. Attorney Robert Simels met repeatedly with ex-gang member Selwyn Vaughn, who once worked for Simels's drug lord client Roger Khan. But Vaughn was actually an informant for federal investigators, and he caught Simels on tape suggesting that a key witness should "just fall off the face of the Earth... I'm gonna leave it to you to figure out what's going to be best to get to him."

A paralyzed man who broke his neck in that 2003 Staten Island Ferry accident wants his lawyer to have a bigger share of his $18.3 million settlement. That's right: He wants to give his lawyer more money. James McMillan, who did not, apparently, suffer head trauma during the accident, appeared in court again yesterday to ask a magistrate to reverse another judge's ruling which reduced his lawyer's fee by almost $2.5 million. McMillan thinks his poor lawyer is entitled to a third of the money (which would be about $6.1 million), telling the Daily News, "I want him to have it. He worked for it. There's a hundred lawyers on TV saying, 'I'm the best,' but this man has walked with me through many things people wouldn't understand. He said, 'James I'm your lawyer' and I needed that comfort." It's unclear what kind of nefarious occult spell attorney Evan Torgan has cast over his client, but the judge who previously reduced his percentage was concerned that McMillan didn't understand the retainer he signed in his hospital bed just days after the crash.

In its advertising, Sears vows to match competitors' prices, but one Long Island lawyer has been walking a long road of disillusionment after the retailer refused to live up to its promises. Back in 2007, when Warren Dank showed employees at a Hicksville Sears ad clippings from competitors selling a 46-inch flat-screen for as low as $2,400—$1,200 less than what Sears was charging for the exact same product—a manager refused to budge on the price. And so Dank found his life's calling: He drove around to three different Sears outlets in the metropolitan area and was denied the promised discount every time.

Marc Dreier, the once high-flying lawyer whose firm had over 200 lawyers, will plead guilty a $700 million scam involving fake promissory notes. According to his lawyer, Dreier—who does not have a deal—will "enter a guilty plea to...conspiracy, securities fraud, money laundering and five counts of wire fraud," the Wall Street Journal reports. Dreier was arrested in December, after returning from Canada where he was arrested for impersonating another lawyer in an attempt to get business from a Canadian pension fund, and has been under house arrest. Dreier faces over seven counts, the New York Law Journal says, "Each count carries a potential sentence of 20 years in prison except for the conspiracy count, which carries a five-year term."

Remember all those times your parents threatened to pull the car over and leave you by the side of the road if you didn't cut the crap? One Park Avenue lawyer actually made good on that threat Sunday night, and now she's in trouble with the law. Police say Madlyn Primoff, a partner at the white-shoe law firm Kaye Scholer in Manhattan, ejected her squabbling 10 and 12-year-old daughters from the family car Sunday, some three miles from her $2 million Scarsdale home.

Marc Dreier is currently under house arrest for his alleged $380 million fraud. Except now the feds had amended their indictment and say the fraud—selling fake promissory notes to hedge funds—is actually $700 million. The Law Blog reports, "Prosecutors are demanding that Dreier forfeit approximately $700 million, including all of his interest in a yacht, luxury cars, and more than 200 works of art by such masters as Andy Warhol, Jasper Johns, Roy Lichtenstein and Henri Matisse." Dreier, a once prominent lawyer whose firm employee 200 people and who pleaded guilty to previous charges, was also hit with a money laundering charge; his lawyer said, "We are looking for a fair resolution and will continue with that effort."

Marc Dreier, the once prominent attorney accused of swindling hundreds of millions from hedge funds and investors alike, was given bail by a federal judge yesterday. However, the NY Times reports, "The conditions set by the judge are so restrictive that even if Mr. Dreier posts the $10 million bond that the judge required — which could happen by early next week — Mr. Dreier would be holed up in what might be considered a fancy prison." Well, Dreier's lawyer did want a Madoff-like bail! Among the restrictions proposed: An electronic monitoring device, a security guard, approval of visitors and "no call forwarding, no modem, no caller ID, no call waiting and no wireless phone."

A NJ lawyer is accused of stealing $4 million "from clients that ranged from handicapped children to the elderly, including one dead client whose bank accounts he supervised." The NY Times reports, "[Steven] Rondos stole more than $1 million from a 32-year-old patient with cerebral palsy and spastic quadriplegia, prosecutors said. In another case, he took a total of more than $400,000 from a person with bipolar depression, before and after the patient died in 2007." And Manhattan District Attorney Robert Morgenthau said, "The son of a b---- was a pretty vicious guy, preying on incapacitated people." Rondos, whose law firm is in Brooklyn, was appointed by courts to manage money for children afflicted with cerebral palsy from medical malpractice as well as elderly people with mental impairments, but he dipped into his clients' money to pay off the mortgage of his Ridgewood, NJ home and renovate it (he needed a new kitchen and home theater). Rondos' lawyer says his client has depression and is taking medication for it.

Not content to let her ex-husband Philip Smith steal the spotlight with the recent news that he's been promoted to the top of the powerful Shubert Organization, good old Tricia Walsh-Smith has resurfaced with a music video that can only be described as breathtaking. You remember, the blond with the crazy eyes who posted videos on YouTube excoriating her husband during their bitter divorce (which ended—or so we thought—with her eviction from the Park Avenue apartment they shared).

A state judge has ruled that a 77-year-old Bay Ridge tax lawyer must pay back taxes after wrongfully deducting more than $300,000 for prostitutes, porn, sex toys and erotic massages. After the verdict, the defendant William Halby told the Post, "I live a solitary life. I have no social life. I needed that release." So he dutifully documented each liaison in a notebook titled "Tax Journal," in case he ever got audited. Turns out that in 2002 alone, Halby deducted $111,364 for "therapeutic sex" and massages "to relieve osteoarthritis and enhance erectile function through frequent orgasm." He argued that the write-offs were necessary medical expenses. But because "significant portions" of his sex therapy was, you know, illegal, they can't be written off. The state auditor also argued that "in addition to being illegal in New York State, these expenses are not substantiated with receipts."

Yesterday a Manhattan judge granted Philip Smith, head of the Shubert Organization, a divorce from his wife Tricia Walsh-Smith, who became an internet sensation after making a YouTube video that excoriated her prominent husband for his stash of “Viagra, porn movies, and condoms.” The video got over 3 million hits, but the judge was not a fan; yesterday he called it "a calculated and callous campaign to embarrass and humiliate her husband. She has attempted to turn the life of her husband into a soap opera by directing, writing, acting in and producing a melodrama."

Yesterday a Manhattan judge ruled that socialite Tricia Walsh-Smith, the scorned and furious wife of Philip Smith, could continue slandering her husband via YouTube as long as she stopped filming the series in the luxury apartment Smith owns. The 77-year-old president of the Shubert organization is in the midst of a nasty divorce proceeding against Walsh-Smith and, per their prenuptial agreement, is trying to evict her from the Park Avenue residence.

Actress/playwright/trophy wife Tricia Walsh-Smith is in the midst of a nasty divorce from Philip Smith, her husband of ten years and president of the Shubert Organization, the largest theater owner on Broadway.

Embattled City Council Speaker Christine Quinn has decided to proceed through the ongoing city slush fund scandal with the guidance of a defense attorney. Federal and City investigators are looking into the allocation of millions of dollars of budget money to fictional organizations. That money was then funneled to private groups, who often kicked back funds in the form of campaign contributions.

After being fired for speaking to a reporter, a lawyer who had represented a slain firefighter's family in their lawsuit against the city is now suing the widow and her children. Way to keep those bad stereotypes about lawyers going!

We've been following the fallout over the late Brooke Astor's will and estate for a while, but today's in-depth article in the NY Times about lawyer Francis Morrissey's numerous clients who put him in their wills is pretty damning. Morrissey was indicted (along with Astor's son Anthony Marshall) on charges if trying to, essentially, loot Astor's estate last month.

One of the ten suspects arrested in the Q train beating of a Jewish man during Hanukkah is saying that hate crime charges are completely uncalled for because he himself is Jewish. Joseph Jirovec Jr. was arrested two weeks ago after a group of Hanukkah revelers was beaten while on a the Q train after wishing happy holidays to other riders. Members of a crowd on the train took objection to the Jewish greetings and a beatdown ensued. In an encouraging twist, it was a young Muslim man who came to Walter Adler's aid. Hassan Askari was recently honored for his interfaith Good Samaritanism.

Anthony Marshall, the son of the late Brooke Astor, might have chosen a different lawyer if he suspected that he'd be eventually accused of looting his mother's estate. Or perhaps Francis X. Morrissey was the perfect man for the job. Papers are reporting today that Marshall's lawyer has a long history of profiting from soon-to-be-deceased clients. He was in court yesterday, arriving handcuffed, but leaving free on bail.It would seem to be the darkest moment...