Friends of Ours

Federal Judge: Former Clients Can Bring Breach Of Fiduciary Duty Claim Against Milberg LLP

Milberg LLP is having a hard time running from its past.

The plaintiff class action firm in its previous incarnation as Milberg Weiss Bershad & Schulman LLP was indicted for an alleged decades-long racketeering conspiracy pursuant to which serial plaintiffs were illegally paid to file shareholder suits against corporations.  After several heavy-weight former partners, including Mel Weiss, pleaded guilty and were jailed for their roles in the scheme, the firm -- once dubbed the "meanest law firm" in America -- escaped prosecution by paying a $75 million fine and hiring a compliance monitor.

And yet some former clients aren't quite ready to forgive, and a federal judge in Manhattan ruled this week that they can proceed with their breach of fiduciary duty claim against the firm as reported by Jonathan Perlow for Courthouse News Service.

Speaking on the intregity of the remaining partners at Milberg, Ariana Tadler previously stated:  "The lawyers that stayed were not implicated or involved in the indictment, and we are going to work just as aggressively as we always have to do the best for our clients."  And yet notwithstanding their innocence the question still begged is whether some of those remaining partners had suspicions about the scheme prior to the indictment and what, if any, steps they took to address the problem.  After all, what did they think was happening when the same individuals repeatedly were serving as plaintiffs in dozens of lawsuits?  Indeed, in 1995, Congress enacted the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act specifically for the purpose of curbing the abuses for which Milberg and several of its partners were indicted, and surely this legislation raised a red flag even among the innocents at the firm.  After all, isn't the specialty of the lawyers at Milberg to root out such things? 

Another former Milberg partner, Paul D. Young, who worked on the firm's lawsuit against Tyco which settled for over $3 billion, was sued by New York City in November 2006 for alleged criminal nuisance involving the operation of El Mirage, a gay S&M sex club, out of the basement of a property he owned as reported by Roger Parloff for Fortune Magazine.  Although El Mirage operated out of Young's building at 253 Houston Street, the certificate of incorporation for the club identified its principal executive office and address for service of process c/o the accounting group at 227 East 56th Street which is the same building out of which the East Side Club operates in which gay businessman Robert N. DeBenedictis has an interest.  Last November a California jury returned a verdict against DeBenedictis for over $50 million in a class action lawsuit involving his role at Global Vision Products, Inc. which until recently marketed and sold the hair loss remedy Avacor.

Meanwhile, on an unrelated note, Joel Cohen and Katherine A. Helm over at Law.com are calling for lawyers to make a New Year's resolution to accept more responsibility for the increasing misconduct in the profession:

While none of us is perfect, some lawyers have behaved far worse than others lately. Daily, it seems, we read about some lawyer defrauding a client, another conspiring to commit securities fraud or insider trading on client information, still another willing to compromise witnesses, and on goes the parade of horribles. Statutes enacted to prosecute the Mafia are now being applied to practicing attorneys; law firms are actually being named as "racketeering enterprises." * * * Confronted by these challenges, we practitioners tend to do what we do by nature and training: Get our backs up against the wall and defend our turf. We promptly separate the good guys from the bad guys; the "us" from "them." Only moral pedants quibble over the dividing line. Law firms admit no liability and dismiss the "bad apples" as aberrational actors. Those who did the deed will do the time and the law-abiding lawyers will continue to serve their clients.

Serbian Minister: Mafia In Some Football Clubs

Serbian Interior Minister Ivica Dacic alleges that "half of sports clubs led by mafia" as reported by B92:

"Today we don't know who owns the clubs. I wanted to hold a meeting with the clubs' presidents before this year's (football) championship started, but I decided to cancel it when I learned who was supposed to attend it. Half of them are involved in organized crime. Do we want such managements in the clubs, or rather those which would have a positive social and state influence."

Switching Teams

In Sydney, Australia there's drama in the biker world with Scott Orrock allegedly leaving the Nomads to join Hells Angels as reported by Dylan Welch for The Sydney Morning Herald.  Dylan Welch further reports that "defecting from a club is seen as one of the greatest breaches of etiquette and has led to some of the worst outbreaks of bikie violence":

Since defecting, Mr Orrock has been the apparent target of intimidation. His clubhouse was broken into and trashed and his car was fire-bombed. He has installed security bars on the front of his Newtown tattoo parlour, Skin Deep. * * * Mr Orrock's 1991 Toyota Soarer was set alight about 4.30am on December 3, Newtown police confirmed.

 Video:  why the bikies are at war

Cleaning House

ACORN CEO Bertha E. Lewis visits Obama at the White House

Convicted racketeer Jim Traficant intends on returning to Congress

Tom Tresser:  taking on the Chicago machine

New York is going bankrupt

Long Island prison guard Mark Barber allegedly had harem of inmates

2009:  an unusual year even for Dirty Jersey

Interview With NYDA Robert Morgenthau

Fight On, President Calderon

An editorial from The Dallas Morning News implores pot-smoking coke-snorting heroin-injecting meth-crazed Americans and the rest of our apathetic citizenry to focus on the narco insurgency along the U.S.-Mexico border which threatens both countries:

For years, many Americans have dismissed the battle between Mexico's government and drug cartels. * * * But this problem, funded largely by U.S. drug users, has rapidly transformed into a battle against a terrorist insurgency, and victory is every bit as important to Mexico's security as is America's battle against al-Qaeda. Defeat for Mexico means nothing less than a descent into chaos. This might sound alarmist, but the tactics being employed by Mexico's drug gangs, not to mention their spread into U.S. border cities, is truly cause for alarm. * * * Drug gangs are challenging the government for control. The violence and death has far exceeded what U.S. troops have faced in Iraq and Afghanistan. The deaths – from hangings, beheadings, dismemberments, executions – are no less hideous than al-Qaeda's twisted form of Islamic "justice." * * * [B]acking away from this fight must not be an option as long as thugs and terrorists are vying against the government for control of Mexico's streets.

What's the point of saving our country from al-Qaeda if we simply hand it over to the Mexican drug cartels which already have established operational cells in more than 250 cities across America?

Florida DCF Employees Charged In Fraud Scheme

In Palm Beach two employees with the Florida Department of Children and Families have been arrested with another for allegedly stealing about $20,000 from the bank accounts of an elderly woman suffering from dementia as reported by Eliot Kleinberg and Michael LaForgia for The Palm Beach Post:

Both women were adult protective investigators with the Florida Department of Children and Families. One went so far as to wait in 85-year-old Jane Janssen's Cocoanut Row apartment and pose as Janssen if the banks called to verify transactions, according to arrest affidavits made public Wednesday. After investigating, Palm Beach Police Detective Nicholas Caristo arrested Mindi Marie Berry, 33, her DCF supervisor, Greta Laverne Lambert, 41, and a third woman, an employee of an escort service who told police she was hired to cash stolen checks. * * * The women face charges of organizing a scheme to defraud, grand theft from an elderly person, credit card fraud and identity theft.

Sunrise, Sunset

Catherine Solyom from The Montreal Gazette provides a brief history on the Rizzuto crime family following the murder last Monday of Nick Rizzuto Jr.:

Not since the murder of crime boss Paolo Violi in 1978 has someone as prominent as the son of the reputed head of the Mafia been the target of an assassination. Indeed, it was Violi's assassination that solidified the hegemony of the Rizzuto clan in Montreal. Having immigrated to Montreal from Sicily in 1954 — when Vito was eight — Nicolo Rizzuto Sr. was a so-called "man of honour" among other Mafiosi until Violi was shot in the back of the head while having dinner at a restaurant. Both Nicolo Sr. and Vito were out of the country when the killing occurred, but three men associated with the Rizzutos were later convicted of Violi's murder. After the murder of three Mafia captains [Philip "Philly Lucky" Giaccone, Alphonse "Sonny Red" Indelicato and Dominick "Big Trin" Trinchera from the Bonanno crime family] in New York — for which Vito Rizzuto was arrested in 2004 and pleaded guilty to racketeering charges in 2007 — Vito became known as the Godfather of the Canadian Mafia.

JibJab: Never A Year Like '09

Children Of The Corn

In Clearwater, FL 11-year-old Samantha Broadhead and her 15-year-old boyfriend Jack Ault have been charged with attempted murder and arson after they allegedly tried "to kill the girl's mother by setting her bedroom on fire while she slept" as reported by Edecio Martinez for CBS New:

Police spokeswoman Elizabeth Watts said the motive was "probably just typical teenage angst." Watts said there was ongoing tension between Samantha Broadhead and her mother, which escalated Monday when Samantha Broadhead's mom confronted her about stealing some of her cigarettes.

Drug Traffickers Exploit Teddy Bear

Rival Gangsters Singing Kumbaya

The gangbangers along the West Coast finally have figured out -- after several decades, the poor slow things -- that violence may pump up their fragile egos but it's otherwise bad for business as reported by Tamara Audi for The Wall Street Journal:

Gangs that were once bloody rivals now are cooperating to wring profits from the sale of illegal drugs and weapons, law-enforcement officials and gang experts say. In some cases, gangs that investigators believed to be sworn enemies share neighborhoods and strike business deals. The collaboration even crosses racial lines, remarkable in a gang world where racial divisions are sharp and clashes are often racially motivated. You see African-Americans dealing with Hispanics on obtaining narcotics and weapons. We're seeing Hispanic gang members involved with the Eastern European criminal figures," said Robert W. Clark, acting special agent in charge of the criminal division of the Los Angeles field office of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. "Where they see opportunities to collaborate, they do."

But not all gangbangers are banging each other in a lovefest:  "Some regions of the country -- like New England, with 640 gangs -- are seeing an increase in violence as gangs grow and fight for control of neighborhoods and the drug trade."

Watching The Detectives

In Los Angeles, CA the "LAPD is struggling to fill vacancies in gang units as a financial disclosure rule meant to fight corruption has been received by many rank-and-file cops as an insult -- and a deal-breaker when it comes to working the tough gangland assignments" as reported by Scott Gold and Joel Rubin for the Los Angeles Times:

Intended to help supervisors catch cops who are taking bribes or to identify officers in financial straits who might be tempted to stray, the policy has considerable reach: Officers must disclose outside income, real estate, stocks and other assets. They also have to report the size of bank accounts and debts, including mortgages and credit cards. And the disclosures apply to any financial holdings a cop shares with family members and business partners. When it went into effect, then-Chief William J. Bratton and other officials insisted that the policy would have little effect on recruiting and retaining gang cops and vowed to block efforts by officers to leave gang units en masse in protest. But erosion in the ranks is apparent. According to interviews with police officers and gang unit supervisors across the city, the number of officers dedicated to fighting gangs is beginning to drop. * * * The policy also includes officers serving on narcotics details, although the discontent seems focused among gang officers.

Cleaning House

Obama to reinflate housing bubble

Bankers get $4 trillion gift from Rep. Barney Frank

GMAC may get $3.5 billion more in federal bailout money

Sen. Ben Nelson launches PR offensive to defend selling his vote on ObamaCare

Blue State Govs:  ObamaCare will be a financial tsunami on state budgets

Judicial Watch:  ten most corrupt politicians

Luzerne County, PA Judge Michael Toole pleads guilty to case fixing & tax evading

Ninth person charged in Baton Rouge, LA judicial corruption case

Easy Come . . . Easy Go