The Daily Business Review by John Pacenti - February 22, 2010
MIAMI, FL - Attorney-accountant Lewis Freeman, for years a favorite when judges were ready to name receivers and trustees, was charged today with wire fraud for allegedly skimming funds from the accounts he controlled under court appointments. Freeman was charged by criminal information, indicating a plea deal has been arranged. The single count carries a maximum 20-year prison sentence by law. He was set for an initial appearance this afternoon before U.S. Magistrate Judge Robert Dube, and the case was assigned to U.S. District Judge Ursula Ungaro for plea or trial. The Miami and Plantation offices of Lewis B. Freeman & Partners were raided by the FBI last October after investigators said they were trying to trace $3.6 million in accounts controlled by Freeman. The information charges he illegally cashed 162 checks worth a total of $2.6 million since 2000. “Lew Freeman made serious mistakes in the way he ran his business,” said Joseph DeMaria, one of Freeman’s criminal defense attorneys. “Lew cooperated immediately and fully.” Freeman, who has an outsized personality, was always willing to talk about the companies he operated and the world of receivers and trustees parachuting into failing companies and ventures ridden by fraud to recover as much as possible for investors. He lived a showy lifestyle in an eight-bedroom, 5,800-square-foot home in Miami’s Coconut Grove neighborhood with an estimated market value of $1.38 million, according to the Miami-Dade County property appraiser’s records.
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2 comments:
This is great. This Florida attorney is just like the lawyers from New York. GO FLORIDA!!
So one got caught, big deal! Lawyers are thieves at heart, that's the nature of their thing! There are thousands more lawyers just like this all over the country! Here in California the same thing goes on and no one wants to deal with it!
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