|  | | 2008 News and Press Releases | | |
HEADLINE NEWS:
Dreier, ‘Enormous Risk of Flight,’ to Be Held in Jail
David Glovin
Bloomberg. December 11, 2008
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EXCERPT: Marc Dreier, the New York lawyer and law firm founder accused of cheating hedge funds out of more than $100 million, is an “enormous” flight risk and will be held in prison while he faces fraud charges, a judge said. “The evidence does appear to show an enormous risk of flight,” U.S. Magistrate Judge Douglas Eaton said at a bail hearing today in Manhattan federal court for Dreier, namesake of the New York law firm Dreier LLP. Prosecutors said Dreier, 58, a graduate of Harvard Law School and Yale College, persuaded two unidentified hedge funds to give him more than $100 million by claiming, falsely, that he was selling at a discount notes issued by New York developer Sheldon Solow. Dreier was separately arrested in Canada last week for impersonating a lawyer at the Ontario Teachers Pension Plan. The jailed attorney faces as long as 20 years on each count for securities and wire fraud in the New York case. He is sole equity partner of Dreier LLP, which has 250 attorneys in six U.S. offices. Firm attorneys said in court papers that he spent as much as $40 million on artwork hanging in the firm’s offices. “He is the Houdini of impersonation and false documents,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Jonathan Streeter told the judge today. The victims of the fraud, which has gone on since 2006, are “very sophisticated investors,” who lost $380 million. Dreier hasn’t responded to the charges. His attorney, Gerald Shargel, asked Eaton to impose a $10 million bond that would be guaranteed by his client’s 19-year-old son and 85-year-old mother. Dreier agreed to electronic monitoring at his home in New York or in Quogue, Long Island, and to be guarded by two armed guards he would pay for, Shargel said. “There is no risk of flight here,” |
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