Lawyers are accused of financial crime in the USA

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Two former partners at the law firm Milberg Weiss LLP were sued by the administrator who coordinates the bankruptcy process of the investment company of former Wall Street investor Bernard Madoff. The action seeks to recover US$ million in profits obtained through financial fraud. The two lawyers are accused of benefiting from the corruption scheme set up by Bernard Madoff in a type of fraud known in the United States as a “Ponzi scheme”, and in Brazil as a “pyramid”.





The expression describes a type of illegal operation that involves the payment of exaggeratedly high returns to some investors, using the resources of more recent investors, who arrived later in the business, instead of profits obtained from true investments or businesses. The name refers to the Italian immigrant Carlo Ponzi, who, upon arriving in the USA at the beginning of the th century, began to carry out Austria Phone Numbers List financial scams with this scheme. According to the records, both lawyers had received income from fraud.



According to the Bloomberg news agency, New York attorney Irving Picard, the bankruptcy trustee, filed suit against former Milberg Weiss LLP associate Melvyn I. Weiss and his colleague and partner David J. Bershad for fraudulent receipt of profits. Both had already been convicted, three years ago, in a bribery and extortion case involving a client. At the time, Weiss and Bershad left the firm Milberg Weiss, which was renamed simply Milberg LLP. The defendants were contacted this Thursday (/) by Bloomberg and The American Lawyer magazine , but did not want to comment.







The names of the lawyers appear on a list of clients and partners of Bernard Madoff, presented to the Court when the bankruptcy was requested in court almost two years ago. “The appeal aims to recover the amount obtained through fictitious profit, so that the client’s (Madoff) property can be distributed among the victims of his fraud”, explained lawyer Irving Picard in the action presented this Wednesday (/) to a Federal Bankruptcy Court in Manhattan.