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FBI Raids Offices of NY Lawyer Who Killed His Family and Himself

Posted Apr 30, 2009 5:38 AM CST
By Debra Cassens Weiss

FBI agents yesterday raided the office of a New York lawyer who apparently killed his family and himself after people who invested with him began demanding their money back.

Authorities carried 37 boxes of evidence from the Manhattan law office of tax and estate-planning lawyer William Parente and seized two hard drives, the New York Daily News reports. Earlier this month, police found the bodies of Parente, his wife, Betty, and their daughters, ages 19 and 11, in a Baltimore-area hotel room. Police believe Parente beat and asphyxiated his family before slashing himself and bleeding to death.

At least a dozen investors have told the FBI they invested about $20 million with Parente over the past 20 years, according to an anonymous source who spoke to Newsday. Parente, a solo practitioner, said he was using the money to make high-interest commercial bridge loans, the source said.

New York City lawyer Bruce Montague says he is one of the investors. He claims he turned over hundreds of thousands of dollars to Parente. When he asked for the return of his investment, he told Newsday earlier this month, Parente sent him a check for $450,000 that bounced.

Comments

1.

B. McLeod
Apr 30, 2009 7:14 AM CST

I have to commend the FBI for being right on top of this, carefully collecting evidence, in case Parente may have committed some crimes.  Although, I’m not quite sure, at this point, where the information or indictment would be filed.

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2.

Barrister
Apr 30, 2009 9:59 AM CST

Somewhere near Quantico and in field offices all over the country, teary-eyed FBI agents are framing B. McLeod’s “commendation” on their walls.

Please don’t list everything you’re not sure of, it would crash the entire website.

Wow…the FBI carefully collects evidence…who do they think they are? Federal agents?

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3.

B. McLeod
Apr 30, 2009 10:29 AM CST

“Barrister” again?  The poster who does not know lawyers register in federal court, but claims to be a lawyer.  Ha!  Wait, I mean HA!!

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4.

Barrister
Apr 30, 2009 11:55 AM CST

B. McLeod, when can the rest of us expect you to take that 5 minute break from your 24 hour ABA blog vigil to “self medicate”...?

Oops…I meant, how’s your practice doing today? Flash that “federal registration card” anywhere? Did it get you a free medium soft drink with you burger deal? Or was that your employee discount card?

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5.

Lee
Apr 30, 2009 1:33 PM CST

Can’t we all just get along?  Or does civility go out the window with anonymity?

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6.

B. McLeod
Apr 30, 2009 2:16 PM CST

Good point.  There are moments when I have to remember to focus on that.

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7.

Barrister
Apr 30, 2009 3:31 PM CST

#5, it went out the same window with integrity. There are quite a few (if not a majority) of JDs and lawyers that this fraud (B. McLeod) routinely ridicules from his throne of ignorance. B. McLeod doesn’t even have a law degree, yet he pollutes virtually every ABA Journal message board to spew garbage. The last straw for me was the article about the law school graduate who passed the bar exam yet was denied his license over student loan debt. B. McLeod, high school diploma in tow, piled on that guy relentlessly and is a constant source of feckless criticism of 2nd, 3rd and 4th tier law schools. A lot of us in the field went to 2nd tier law schools and actually earned law degrees…something B. McLeod doesn’t have because he hasn’t attended a law school of any tier.

It just has to stop. In this economy, for practitioners who are carrying student loan debt and worried about our careers, the last thing any of us need is B. McLeod’s layperson diatribe.

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8.

B. McLeod
Apr 30, 2009 4:45 PM CST

By way of civil (with deference to Lee) correction, and as most long time readers on the site will recall from past posts, rankings did not exist when I selected a law school.  However, the law school that conferred my JD is grouped in “Tier 1” today.  Notwithstanding my degree from a Tier 1 school, it has been and remains my position (also reflected in many prior posts), that what graduates do once in practice matters more than the ranking of their school, or for that matter, their grades.  Hence, the suggestion that I have constantly criticized 2nd, 3rd or 4th tier schools, or their graduates, is simply unfounded and wrong.

While it is regrettable that students today are coming out with large debt balances, and are worried about their careers, I refuse to feel guilty just because I do not have debts, and have established a successful career.  Nor should my relative success be seized upon to justify attacks based on what appears (quite frankly) to be naked envy and completely unwarranted personal animosity.

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9.

JAG CWP
Apr 30, 2009 7:10 PM CST

I’ve seen Harvard grad (1967) judges make horrible errors that a first year first quarter / semester student would easily avoid.
-

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10.

B. McLeod
Apr 30, 2009 10:52 PM CST

Recycled B. McLeod post from January on the issue of “tier” prejudice/bagging:

Posted by B. McLeod - 3 months, 1 week, 20 hours, 49 minutes ago

If you read his chain of posts, Joseph’s central theme is really a call to restrain competition.  Now that he’s across the bridge, he’d like to burn it for anyone coming behind.  Especially obvious is the concern that, if forced to go toe-to-toe with unwashed “tier 4” lawyers, he might not always be able to demonstrate any real competitive superiority.  This is a tacit acknowledgement that he is in fact fully aware some of them are functionally his peer, or better.  Solution - keep them out with entry barriers, so they don’t threaten the “hind quarter” of the classes ginned out by the upper tier schools.  Only problem is those pesky antitrust laws.

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11.

B. McLeod
Apr 30, 2009 10:59 PM CST

Further prior B. McLeod exchange on tier-bagging:

Posted by Joseph - 3 months, 1 week, 17 hours, 50 minutes ago

You guys assume that all lawyers who graduate from the “elite” schools work for the wealthy via big law and that only those in the trenches of Tier 4 can somehow “hang out a shingle” and help “regular folks.” 

Don’t “everyday people” deserves an attorney who hangs out his shingle because he wants to and not because he didn’t have any job offers? 

And yes, I do want to restrain competition, however, your metaphor about burning the bridge after I crossed it is not really on point.  I’ve wanted to see this particular bridge burned for years.  The legal profession used to be something that one had to work hard for to join.  It required good grades, good test scores, and attracted people who generally knew what they were getting into. 

Sadly because running a law school has become a for profit business, any idiot can start one with minimal investment.  Today, it really doesn’t matter what your intellectual qualifications are.  One can have a 2.1 and a 141 LSAT, and chances are, some law school will accept you.  These students then borrow $120,000 to attend and wind up becoming the sob stories we read about in Forbes.

Posted by B. McLeod - 3 months, 1 week, 14 hours, 29 minutes ago

No, I do not assume either of those things.

Also, my experience (which I suspect extends further into history than yours) is that the legal profession has not required good grades or good test scores, and has not attracted people who generally knew what they were getting into.  The fact is and has long been that anyone who gets out of any law school with a degree that permits them to sit for the bar can do so.  The further fact is (and has long been) that a passing score on the umpteenth attempt at the bar gets the applicant into the profession.  It is then, in the crucible of actual practice, that the newbies come to find out “what they were getting into.”  Also, lessons learned in that actual practice will readily overcome early disadvantages.  If a D graduate of a “tier 4” school who passed the bar on the 5th attempt manages to become an effective trial lawyer, nobody with any sense is going to try to berate them 20 years out for their school choice, grades or bar results.

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