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Tilted Cat Head
Administrator
Location: Manhattan, NY
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yes I forgot about the Netflix one... that's because I just got a month free, which I really didn't notice at all since I'm still a subscriber.
Heck, I signed up for the airborne one because I have purchased it in the past. I dunno if it worked or not, but I did like the fact I got an interesting bubbly beverage.
Quote:
View: Class-Action Lawyer Gets 30 Months
Source: NYTimes
posted with the TFP thread generator
Class-Action Lawyer Gets 30 Months
June 3, 2008
Class-Action Lawyer Gets 30 Months
By JONATHAN D. GLATER
Melvyn I. Weiss, the prominent class-action lawyer, was sentenced on Monday to 30 months in prison by a federal district judge in Los Angeles for his role in concealing illegal kickbacks to plaintiffs.
He was also ordered to pay $9.7 million in forfeitures and $250,000 in fines.
The sentencing nearly concludes an investigation that began some seven years ago of tactics used by Mr. Weiss’s former firm, Milberg Weiss, now called Milberg
Mr. Weiss’s former partner, William S. Lerach, is serving a two-year sentence as a result of the same investigation, and other lawyers have pleaded guilty for roles in what prosecutors described as a criminal conspiracy that lasted for decades. Mr. Lerach was also ordered to forfeit $7.75 million.
Mr. Weiss, Mr. Lerach and the law firm that they built together dominated the lucrative field of securities class-action litigation, filing many lawsuits against publicly-traded companies on behalf of investors who lost money when corporations’ share prices fell. Milberg itself still faces an indictment and is set to go to trial in August, but a settlement is widely expected between the firm and prosecutors.
It is hard to overstate the prominence of Mr. Lerach and Mr. Weiss in the world of shareholder litigation, or the anger and frustration their lawsuits caused among the ranks of corporate executives.
“They were dominant,” Carl Tobias, a law professor at the University of Richmond, said. “It’s really the class-action device and its use that they perfected.”
Mr. Lerach and Mr. Weiss pleaded guilty to conspiring to make secret payments to lead plaintiffs in shareholder class actions, essentially to reward what prosecutors described as a “stable” of ready clients who held stock in a variety of companies. The payments meant that the lead plaintiffs stood to receive more money than they would if they had simply been members of the class, and that as a result they might not have looked out for the best interests of the entire class as lead plaintiffs are supposed to do.
Because Milberg had clients ready, it could get to the courthouse first, seek to be lead counsel to the class of aggrieved investors and demand more in legal fees, Mr. Tobias said.
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yeah, this makes me even more sure that the lawyers are the winners....thank god this one is now a loser!
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