BigLaw Firm Faces Financial Hit While Partner May Face Criminal Charges
New York Lawyer by Niraj Chokshi - April 7, 2008
The court-appointed trustee in the SonicBlue bankruptcy case has asked the judge to order two law firms and three creditors to pay a total of at least $30 million in compensatory damages for breaches of fiduciary duty.
In the complaints filed last week, the trustee asks San Jose bankruptcy Judge Marilyn Morgan to force the Los Angeles-based firms — Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman and Levene, Neale, Bender, Rankin & Brill — to disgorge all fees and expenses. Pillsbury has collected $4.2 million in the case, and Levene earned $1.2 million.
The filings ask for compensatory damages of at least $11 million from Pillsbury, former counsel for SonicBlue; $5 million from Levene, former counsel for the creditors' committee; and $14 million from the group of three creditors. The trustee also asks that the court consider punitive damages for Pillsbury and the creditors.
"These are large numbers for any firm, for anybody. And the threat of punitive damages is always something that can make you stay up at night," said Michael Cooper, a partner with Wendell, Rosen, Black & Dean who represents various parties in bankruptcies and is not involved in the case. The trustee, Dennis Connolly, was appointed at the urging of the U.S. bankruptcy trustees last year when misconduct allegations heated up.
Monday's filings came 10 days after a creditor's attorney asked the judge to refer Pillsbury partner William Freeman to the U.S. attorney for the Northern District of California for alleged criminal misconduct relating to a failure to disclose information under penalty of perjury.
Bankruptcy lawyers noted that there's no guarantee Morgan will adopt the trustee's position, or set any compensatory damages so high.
Unlike the dough boy of similar name, the Pillsbury is as dirty as hell!
ReplyDeleteCORRECTION: the Pillsbury law firm is dirty as hell!!
ReplyDeletethese law firms are all dirty, I know from first hand what a bunch of dirty thieves inhabit that den of thieves known as Pillsbury...lock them up
ReplyDeletethese white shoe so-called law firms are the new gangsters, they are the new mob and should all be jailed...the problem is who is going to take them on?
ReplyDeleteTEH NEW MOB - GO TO THEIR WEB PAGE THEY POST THEY ARE THE MOST CONNECTED! IN MY CASE THEY WERE, THEY OWNED, MY LAWYERS. THE JUDGE AND TRUSTEES AS IT TURNED OUT! THE JUDGES AND TRUSTEES ARE ALSO PART OF THE MOB FAMILY TOO, SO LETS NOT FORGET THIS FACT AS WITHOUT THEM THEY COULD NOT GET AWAY WITH WHAT THEY HAVE!
ReplyDeleteJust the tip of the iceberg. Respected lawyer and author of the Bankruptcy Crimes books series Stephanie Wickouski long ago informed the general public that each time these BigLaw attorneys file a false declaration of disinterestedness in order to get hired as official counsel in a bankruptcy case it is a crime. Numerous ordinary citizens are thrown in jail for the crime of lying under oath, as are some famous people like Martha Stewart, Li'l Kim. We also see baseball players indicted such as Barry Bonds, not for using steroids but for allegedly lying about using them while under oath before Congress. For how long is the public supposed to accept this double standard?
ReplyDeleteThe problem has been that the DOJ's Office of the U.S. Trustee has been staffed by a revolving door of former and prospective partners of BigLaw. Referring, investigating, indicted, prosecuting, and incarcerating your former law partners/prospective employers is not considered a good career move by these particular public servants who hold money above oath and honor. Thus we have the blatant frauds upon the Court such as in the eToys and Aureal bankruptcy cases. The Aureal case crimes took place in the very same district court as Sonic Blue and involved the coverup by both DOJ and California State Bar officials. What is the difference which has independent lawyers demanding multi-million dollar fines and a criminal referral for criminal non-disclosure in the Sonic Blue case, but in stark contrast the whistle-blowers to such crimes are personally attacked with the help and support of Law Enforcement and the Judiciary in the eToys and Aureal cases? The essential difference in these last two cases is that current and former DOJ employees were partners in the BigLaw firms which committed the crimes in the eToys and Aureal cases. Facts are a stubborn thing. Whistle-blowers can not be silenced in this age of the internet (unless the death threats against the whistle-blowers are followed through). Would the powers that be in the media please wake up and inform the citizenry of the largest organized crime ring eating away at our nations wealth as a tax upon all banking and business credit?
A company went public for $8bn and then filed bankruptcy a little over a year later. The Court and DOJ speciously gave their blessing to immediate destruction of Books n Records.
ReplyDeleteThe attorneys who were hired as Debtor and Creditors counsel, by law mandated to be "arms length" got together and "planted" a paid associate of the Creditors counsel within the Debtor.
All this is reported to the court 3 years later and the Delaware Dept of Justice gives the perpetrators, who confessed to filing more than 34 false affidavits in the case, implied, blanket, immunity.
Armed with such immunity, they immediately perform another $100 million in fraud in another case.
Then key Dept of Justice personnel resign.
3 years after those resignations it is learned that the Delaware US Attorney was a partner in 2001 with the MNAT law firm, that confessed to fraud and false affidavitsm when the $300 million in fraud and perjury began.
This was reported to the CA US Attorney who responded by Disbanding the Public Corruption Task Force while he threatened career prosecutors to keep their mouths shut.
This was then reported to the Senators, the Judiciary Comm and the FBI,
Then the Region 3 US Trustee' resigns and the person that was removed from the Trustee position, when the fraud and perjury was documented, goes back in to clean up her own mess.
Then the FBI raids the Washington DC OSC"s office for destroying whistle blower files against the Government.
It is our case, however, it is Your system of justice.
We are thankful for www.bankruptcymisconduct.com , www.craig-morford.com, www.fraudonthecourt.blogspot.com and www.wjfa.net/bk/etoys.html for putting themselves in harms way to bring the Truth to the American Public.
For the Press seems to think the Public does not care about fraud and corruption in our courts.
Those educated people so bright, while the American people are such lambs
Until we UNITE against the wolves.
Stand up and fight for your American way of life
or
LET IT GO!
After the MNAT and TBF law firm confessed to filing false affidavits and a plot to deceive the court, the Delaware Chief Justice responded by making the whistle blower lose $3.7 million as she issued an Order that stated, despite the confessions, that no Perjury acts were documented and she refused to refer the matter to the US Attorney as is required BY LAW
ReplyDelete18 USC 3057(a) and the Judicial Canon's of Conduct 3(B)3
You can see my Online Affidavit of proof of Obstruction of Justice by the Dept of Justice to protect Organized Criminal acts in Delaware and the Court's ruling, including the Third Circuit Court of Appeals stating that the Federal Rules of Appellate Procedure do not apply to this case.
That is the Problem
The LAW is NOT being APPLIED!
http://fraud-corruption-mnat.townhall.com/default.aspx
Read UCLA Law Prof Lynn LoPucki's book
ReplyDelete"Courting Disaster" how Competition for Big Cases is Corruption the Bankruptcy Courts.
It is our case,
IT IS YOUR SYSTEM OF JUSTICE.
Do not be gulled by repetitive, verbal, reinforcement that this does not matter to you.
Enron, eToys, FAO, Levitz, Kmart, STage Stores, all have this same group involved.
They received Dept of Justice assistance because it benefited the group of attorneys who work for and with BAIN
Bain was owned by Presidential hopeful Romney when it all occurred.
They did not print the story then saying it was political attacks
He is no longer running
and the Affidavits are ONLINE
What is the excuse NOW?