Prominent Lawyer Pleads Guilty for Role in Billionaire’s Alleged Embezzling
An up-and-coming Miami lawyer has agreed to plead guilty to conspiracy to commit mail fraud and money laundering in connection with his representation of a wealthy businessman, the National Law Journal reports.
Miami lawyer Richard Simring entered the plea in July in the Eastern District of Virginia, but few were aware of the development, according to the story. The publication describes Simring as a rising legal star and community activist who clerked for Rosemary Barkett, the former chief justice of the Florida Supreme Court who now sits on the Atlanta-based 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. At one time he was a partner at Stroock Stroock & Lavan.
Simring has agreed to testify against the businessman, billionaire Ed Okun, as part of the deal, Simring’s lawyer, Brian Tannebaum, told the National Law Journal. Simring faces up to five years in prison.
Simring was chief legal counsel to Okun, who ran the 1031 Tax Group, a company that specialized in 1031 tax exchanges that allow investors to defer capital gains by exchanging one property for another, the story says. Prosecutors allege Okun misappropriated money he was supposed to be holding in escrow for investors. Okun was indicted in July.
The criminal information and a statement of facts claim Simring conspired with Okun to mislead investors about the safekeeping of their money, and even helped transferred $8 million in investor money to Okun’s personal accounts after he became interim CEO of Okun’s company. But he began work for Okun with a warning about his business methods.
The story says Simring was of counsel at Jorden Burt when he began representing Okun in 2006. Simring warned Okun that he could not take money from client funds, according to the government. Okun responded that he would pay back most of the money and change his business methods.
Okun hired Simring as chief legal officer in January 2007, paying Simring an annual salary of $850,000 and giving him a signing bonus of $100,000, the government claims. Simring later learned that Okun had not lived up to his promises but the lawyer misled clients by telling them the company was suffering only from short-term liquidity issues, according to the statement of facts.
He and Okun also used new money to pay old clients in a manner consistent with a Ponzi scheme, the facts statement says. Simring was CEO for just three days.
