Legal Ethics
Motion Asks Judge to Refer Pillsbury Partner for Possible Perjury Prosecution
Posted Mar 31, 2008, 08:17 am CST
By Debra Cassens Weiss
A lawyer for the successor company to SonicBlue has asked a judge to refer a partner at Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman to the U.S. attorney’s office for possible prosecution.
The motion claims Los Angeles partner William Freeman failed to disclose fees that Pillsbury withdrew from SonicBlue’s retainer account in the 90 days leading up to SonicBlue’s bankruptcy filing, the Recorder reports. The motion says the withdrawals were preference payments that impaired Pillsbury’s ability to represent SonicBlue as a disinterested party in bankruptcy. All parties hired in a bankruptcy are required to disclose connections with debtors, including preference payments, the story says.
The lawyer who filed the motion, William McGrane, represents successor company SonicBlue Claims. “The conclusion Mr. Freeman willfully perjured himself … has now become utterly inescapable,” McGrane wrote in the motion, according to the Recorder account.
McGrane claimed Freeman withheld information about the payments from the court as part of his application to be employed as SonicBlue’s bankruptcy counsel. "How sad, and how absolutely criminal, all this misconduct ultimately was," McGrane wrote.
McGrane quotes from an e-mail that Freeman sent to another Pillsbury lawyer, Craig Barbarosh, the story says. “The firm has major exposure here," the e-mail said. Barbarosh replied, “We're going to get f---ked … I'm very uncomfortable.”
Pillsbury was kicked off the case a year ago for failing to disclose an opinion letter promising three hedge funds payment as senior bondholders even if SonicBlue filed for bankruptcy. The bankruptcy trustee had argued the law firm might be responsible for any shortfall in payment to the hedge funds, so it would be motivated to make sure they were paid in full.
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Comments
Posted by David - 8 months, 1 day, 14 hours, 37 minutes ago
As terrible as the crimes of William Freeman, as the fall guy, for the firm Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman are: we should be fair and view the crimes in context. The bankruptcy courts in the Northern District of California are blind to crimes by attorneys, even those from L.A. A far more egregious set of facts envelope the case of Aureal, Inc. wherein the Debtors counsel failed to disclose the nature of the conflict with the senior lender and majority shareholder, such failures to make mandatory disclosure where furthered by fraudulent SEC filings. Additional failures to disclose related to concurrent representation of distressed debt “vulture investor” Argo Partners, and reprentation of other professionals. Additional crimes include destruction of books and records, and presentation of fabricated documents. However, in context these crimes are merely ordinary course events for the criminals known as bankruptcy attorneys, as well as the corrupt officials at the DOJ and CA State Bar who thrust their heads into sand like ostriches.
But don’t take the opinion of a blogger, read the filings in re: CA Supreme Court Case S157298. You see, from Bill’s perspective this was business as usual, (nearly) everybody does it. That is, noone gets caught. Oopps. That is, even when caught noone is supposed to get in trouble. So the real story we want reported is, why is Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman getting singled out for enforcement of laws which have been de facto voided by clear case law? Who did Bill piss off?
Posted by Hmmm mmmmmm - 7 months, 4 weeks, 3 hours, 26 minutes ago
Who cares if Bill pissed someone off. Bill allegedly did something wrong. If Bill did something wrong, then he should pay the penalty. It does not matter that other people have done the same thing and did not get in trouble for it. So that “Who did Bill piss off?“ bit is a non-issue.
Posted by Caldwell - 7 months, 3 weeks, 6 days, 21 hours, 6 minutes ago
If there is any truth to the claims of corruption, the answer to this question is very pertinent - whose palm did Bill fail to grease will get you to the bottom of this in NDCal