Will Others Be Charged in Alleged $1.2B Scheme By Founder of Fla. Law Firm?
After news of a planned guilty plea in an alleged $1.2 billion fraud by the founder and former managing partner of Rothstein Rosenfeldt Adler, observers are wondering whether others are going to be charged in the case.
In a filing yesterday concerning a conflict-of-interest argument being made over now-disbarred defendant Scott Rothstein’s legal counsel, federal prosecutors note in passing that other employees of RRA have “apparent criminal culpability,” reports the South Florida Sun Sentinel. Rothstein’s defense lawyer is not among those accused of such misconduct, the filing states.
Rothstein couldn’t have pulled off such a massive scam by himself, contends one investor who says he lost $2 million in the alleged fraud.
“There is no way he can do that big of a Ponzi scheme and not have more people involved,” Todd Snyder tells the Miami Herald, adding “I am hoping some other people go down with him.”
Meanwhile, a creditors committee unsuccessfully argued in a bankruptcy hearing yesterday that several key RRA figures should be excluded, because of their claimed participation in wrongdoing, from a payroll of over $19,000 for which trustee Herbert Stettin was seeking court approval, the Daily Business Review reports. The payroll covered a one-week period ending Nov. 3, and counsel for Stettin said he had promised the firm’s workers to do his best to get their wages paid to them if they stayed to help him unwind the Fort Lauderdale firm.
“These people were there when Mr. Stettin desperately needed them,” said U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Raymond Ray as he OK’d the payout.
