As Feds Seek to Lock Up Madoff & His Money, Jailed Dreier Asks to Pay Lawyer
As federal prosecutors and a growing number of once-wealthy investors with Bernard Madoff urge that the alleged architect of a $50 billion hedge fund Ponzi scheme be imprisoned so that he can’t dissipate any more money, another defendant in a federal financial fraud case of somewhat less stunning scope is asking that he be allowed to use some of his frozen funds to pay his lawyer.
Attorney Marc Dreier, who is accused of scamming some $390 million from hedge funds and other sophisticated investors through bogus promissory notes, is asking that the Securities and Exchange Commission lift an asset freeze in a civil case against him so that he can pay his lawyer, Gerald Shargel, the Am Law Daily reports.
“Shargel will also likely use Bernard Madoff’s continued freedom to argue Dreier deserves to be out on bail—especially if the judge in Madoff’s case rejects a prosecutor’s claim that Madoff should be locked up after evidence surfaced showing Madoff mailed friends and family $1 million in jewelry late last month in an apparent violation of his bail conditions,” the legal blog reports.
Madoff is accused as well of having been on the verge of sending $173 million to family and friends when he was arrested last month, as discussed in an earlier ABAJournal.com post.
Meanwhile, those allegedly bilked by Madoff are adding their voices to prosecutors’ arguments that he should be jailed, rather than confined to his $7 million home on Manhattan’s Upper East Side.
“I’m sincerely, and this is the understatement of the year, appalled that this man is not in prison,” former Self magazine editor and author Alexandra Penney tells CNN. Retired from journalism and living a luxe lifestyle, she had invested everything with Madoff and now plans to return to work, the news agency reports.
A decision on prosecutors’ call for Madoff to be jailed is expected as early as this afternoon, reports the Associated Press.
