Crooked Lawyers… And a Judge
Another fascinating article on the front page of today’s New York Times (24 March 2007): Fraud Inquiry Looks at Lawyers in Diet-Drug Case. In what experts are describing as one of the biggest and most brazen frauds in legal history, the lawyers who settled the fenphen diet-drug lawsuit on behalf of 440 clients for $200 millions kept most of the money for themselves. The three lawyers involved are William J. Gallion, Shirley A. Cunningham, and Melbourne Mills, Jr. Mr. Mills lawyer said that he denies any criminal wrong-doing… “He may be liable for a little money if he was overpaid.”
Given the original agreement between the three lawyers and their clients, the clients should have received $135 million dollars from the settlement. Instead they only received $74 million. $106 million went to the lawyers and $20 million went to a “charitable fund.”
But wait, you say… Settlements have to be approved by the judge. Why did he approve this bogus settlement? Well that’s where the “charitable fund” came in…. It turns out that the judge, the “honorable” Joseph F. Bamberger ended up as a director of the “charitable fund” and was paid $5,000 a month for all his hard work on its behalf.
I suppose we have all become rather numb to rampant greed but I’d like to point out that these lawyers could have perfectly legally divided $65 million between themselves… Unless my calculator’s broken that’s nearly $22 million each.
606 views