Two defendants convicted in the Milberg LLP scandal, former partner Steven Schulman and former client Howard J. Vogel, will report to federal prison this week.
In 2006, the firm and two of its named partners, David J. Bershad and Schulman, were indicted in US District Court on various counts, including racketeering, mail fraud, and bribery. Prosecutors claimed that Milberg paid portions of $251million in legal fees to plaintiffs to induce them to sue.
The firm agreed to pay $75 million to settle charges last year.
Schulman, who pleaded guilty to a federal racketeering charge, was sentenced to six months in prison. Vogel, who served as a plaintiff in 40 of the firm’s cases, will serve three months.
Bershad recently began serving six months in prison. Last year, former partners William Lerach and Melvyn Weiss began serving separate sentences of 24 months and 30 months, respectively. Another defendant, Steven G. Cooperman, who served as a lead plaintiff for Milberg, recently began a sentence of four months.