U.S. distribution rights to a documentary on the life of disgraced and convicted attorney Marc Dreier have been acquired by a company with plans to release the movie on April 13 this year. The director of the film is himself a former lawyer of Dreier LLP.
The trailer for the movie Unraveled, filmed while Dreier was under 60-day house arrest prior to conviction and sentencing would also be aired on CNBC and Show time. The 61-year old Dreier would remain behind the bars up to November 11, 2026. He is currently serving a 20-year prison sentence at a facility in Sandstone, Minnesota.
The trailer has already been released on YouTube and contains comments from Dreier’s lawyer Gerald Shargel. The documentary has been directed by Marc Simon, a former Dreier LLP lawyer who is not a partner at a small New York firm that specializes in digital media and publishing.
Simon has previous connections with the movie industry and had a minor role in Spike Lee’s 25th Hour, besides directing Nursery University, a documentary on Manhattan’s private preschools.
As clear from the documentary’s trailer the model under which Dreier ran his law firm as a one-equity partner failed as a business model and put him into a vicious cycle of borrowing. However, as proved later during trial, a major part of the alleged ‘borrowed’ money had been borrowed without the knowledge of the owners and simply taken from client accounts. Dreier’s clients included rich people including clients like real estate billionaire Sheldon Solow. Rather than going into the firm and its development, such ‘borrowed’ money was spent on the upkeep of Dreier’s high-flying lifestyle and on artwork, penthouses, and celebrity and yacht events.
The trailer ends with a quote from Dreier: “It’s easy to say you would never cross the line, but the line is presented to very, very few people.â€
In the documentary Drier admits it’s difficult to keep “discipline when you’re spending money that’s not yours …The morality of it did bother me, but it didn’t stop me – it’s hard to explain that.â€