White CollarRSS

  • December 17, 2010

    Picower Widow To Give Back $7.2B In Madoff Profits

    The widow of philanthropist Jeffry Picower has reached a deal with federal prosecutors and the trustee overseeing recovery efforts for victims of Bernard L. Madoff to hand over $7.2 billion in bogus profits from the massive Ponzi scheme.

  • December 16, 2010

    5th Circ. OKs Freeze On Stanford Brokers' Assets

    A federal appeals panel has sided with the court-appointed receiver trying to recover money for victims of Texas financier Robert Allen Stanford's alleged $8 billion Ponzi scheme, finding it was appropriate for a lower court to freeze the assets of 330 of Stanford's former employees.

  • December 16, 2010

    Ex-Ohio County Auditor Gets 22 Years In Bribery Case

    A federal court has sentenced a former Ohio county auditor to nearly 22 years in prison for accepting bribes in return for county contracts, jobs and other official favors.

  • December 16, 2010

    Jury Clears Ex-NJ Assemblyman Of Corruption Charges

    A former New Jersey legislator was acquitted of corruption charges on Thursday, becoming the second defendant to walk free from allegations sparked by a wide-ranging federal corruption probe that led to dozens of arrests.

  • December 16, 2010

    Fen-Phen Atty Deserved Policy Rescission: Insurer

    Continental Casualty Co. has urged a federal appeals court to reject disbarred lawyer Melbourne Mills Jr.'s appeal of an order rescinding his policy after he covered up a criminal probe into his actions concerning a $200 million settlement in a class action over diet drug fen-phen.

  • December 16, 2010

    Plaintiffs Blast $137M BofA Deal In Muni Bond MDL

    A federal judge has given Bank of America Corp. until Friday to respond to claims that it did not bother talking to plaintiffs in a sweeping multidistrict litigation when it negotiated a $137.3 million settlement with 20 state attorneys general over allegations of bid-rigging in the municipal bond derivatives market.

  • December 16, 2010

    HP Kickback Probe Widens To More European Countries

    The U.S. Department of Justice and the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission are investigating whether Hewlett-Packard Co. personnel in multiple European countries were involved in kickbacks or other improper payments to state-owned or private entities, the company said in an SEC filing.

  • December 16, 2010

    AUO Antitrust Ruling Delayed For Criminal Trial

    A federal judge has postponed ruling on claims against AU Optronics Corp. in the multidistrict litigation alleging a $500 million price-fixing scheme in the thin film transistor liquid crystal display panel market until after a parallel criminal case against the company goes to trial in late 2011.

  • December 16, 2010

    Air Force Officer Cops To Iraq Contract Fraud

    A senior U.S. Air Force officer has pled guilty to conspiring to defraud the government by steering lucrative government contracts for military services to Global Procurement Inc.

  • December 16, 2010

    Attys Split On Espionage Case Against WikiLeaks

    White collar defense attorneys from McDermott Will & Emery LLP and O'Melveny & Myers LLP told a U.S. Senate committee Thursday that bringing an espionage case against WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange would be an unprecedented move, but they disagreed about the government's chances of success.

  • December 16, 2010

    US Answers Mandell Dismissal Bid With New Charges

    The U.S. government has added counts of mail and wire fraud to its $140 million investment fraud case against Ross Mandell following the Sky Capital LLC founder's bid to toss the case in light of the U.S. Supreme Court's bar on so-called foreign-cubed securities cases.

  • December 16, 2010

    Ex-Winston Atty Targeted For Role In Ponzi Scheme

    The U.S. Department of Justice on Thursday charged former Winston & Strawn LLP partner Jonathan Bristol with laundering over $20 million in connection with his client Kenneth Ira Starr's admitted Ponzi scheme, while the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission levied similar allegations in an amendment to its civil proceeding against Starr.

  • December 16, 2010

    Feds Modify Claims In $350M Aeropostale Kickback Plot

    Federal prosecutors have clarified their allegations against a former senior executive at clothing retailer Aeropostale Inc. and a New York-based supplier over their alleged involvement in a $350 million kickback scheme that lasted for nearly 10 years.

  • December 16, 2010

    $10M In Clawbacks OK'd In Westgate Fraud Suit

    A federal judge has signed off on nearly $10 million in clawback settlements in the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission's suit against prison-bound Ponzi schemer James M. Nicholson, who founded Westgate Capital Management LLC before using it to swindle investors out of as much as $140 million.

  • December 16, 2010

    Ex-Frontier CEO Says US Misused Depositions

    Former Frontier Holdings Inc. CEO Jeffrey Wallace Edwards has hit back at the federal government over charges that he swindled investors out of $7.4 million, saying that prosecutors violated his right to due process by misusing his civil depositions in the criminal case.

  • December 16, 2010

    Feds Charge 4 Consultants In Insider Trading Probe

    Federal investigators have charged four people with conspiracy and fraud for allegedly selling their employers' inside information under the guise of expert consulting work.

  • December 16, 2010

    Feds Defend 10-Year Sentence For InterMune Exec

    Federal prosecutors are standing by their argument that an executive of drugmaker InterMune Inc. should go to prison for 10 years for fraudulently marketing one of the company's products for a deadly lung disease it was not approved to treat.

  • December 16, 2010

    Elan, Eisai To Pay $214M Over Zonegran Marketing

    The U.S. government has finalized a $203.5 million criminal and civil settlement with Irish drugmaker Elan Corp. PLC over off-label marketing of epilepsy drug Zonegran, as well as revealed an $11 million False Claims Act settlement with the drug's current owner Eisai Co. Ltd.

  • December 16, 2010

    Q&A With Pillsbury's Mark Hellerer

    In too many instances of enforcement, a competition seems to have arisen among federal and state agencies to impose the highest monetary penalties, often devoid of any relationship to the gain or loss from the underlying activity. This development threatens the basic underpinnings of our justice system, says Mark R. Hellerer, head of Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman LLP's corporate investigations and white collar defense group.

  • December 15, 2010

    Ex-Detroit Mayor Faces New Batch Of Criminal Charges

    Federal prosecutors unveiled new charges Wednesday against ex-Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick and four of his associates, alleging that they committed extortion, bribery and fraud in the award of municipal contracts.