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Summary: The founder of the law firm Dreier LLP, Marc Dreier, has been ordered to testify in-person at a trial regarding his former law firm.
A federal judge ordered Marc Dreier to testify in person in a trial surrounding his bankrupt law firm, according to Bloomberg. Dreier is a lawyer from New York who has been convicted of defrauding his hedge fund clients of more than $400 million.
Dreier is in the midst of serving a sentence of 20 years at Sandstone Federal Correctional Institution in Minnesota. He asked U.S. District Judge Alvin Hellerstein to permit him to testify via phone or video instead of appearing in person at the United States Bankruptcy Court in Manhattan.
When he asked Judge Hellerstein, he said that he has already met with the trustee appointed to him by the court multiple times. The meetings are about the firm he founded, Dreier LLP.
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“While I do not expect the parties or the court to be especially sympathetic to my own hardship, I point out that if I am compelled to be in New York I face an ordeal that entails several weeks of travel in each direction, handcuffed and shackled the whole time, with layovers in county courts and a stay of indefinite duration” in the federal jail in Lower Manhattan, Dreier wrote in a letter.
“I am being asked to testify on a very narrow and seemingly incontestable point, i.e., whether I engaged in a Ponzi scheme, a fact I have already conceded in open court,” Dreier said in the letter.
The request was denied by Hellerstein on Tuesday, claiming that Dreier was unable to change the judge’s mind from when he requested the same thing earlier in the month.
In May of 2009 Dreier entered a guilty plea to conspiracy, money laundering, securities fraud and wire fraud after he admitted to stealing $400 million. He stole the money by selling fake notes to hedge funds in order to subsidize his law firm and purchase luxury items for himself.
He has been ordered to pay restitution of $387.7 million. The lawyer representing Dreier is Gerald Shargel.
