Indicted investor waives potential conflict posed by his BigLaw lawyers' grand jury appearance
A federal judge on Wednesday allowed wealthy investor Morris Zukerman to waive any potential conflicts posed by his white-collar defense lawyers’ required appearance before a federal grand jury to testify about their conversations with Zukerman.
The lawyers are James Bruton III and James Fuller III of Williams & Connolly, the New York Times DealBook blog reports. They are trying to negotiate a plea deal for Zukerman, who was indicted last month on charges that he failed to pay $45 million in taxes on the sales of art work and an oil company.
Last summer, a Manhattan federal judge ordered Bruton and Fuller to testify before the grand jury investigating Zukerman about whether he had used the lawyers to conceal his activities, according to the article. A federal appeals court upheld the judge’s order in October. There is no suggestion the lawyers did anything wrong.
The lawyers prepared a “tax protest letter” that challenged determinations made by an IRS auditor, prosecutors said in a court filing. The indictment alleges that Zukerman lied about the sale of the oil company in an initial phone interview with the lawyers, and didn’t follow through on a promise to provide the lawyers with documentation before preparation of the letter.
Zukerman was represented by another lawyer at the hearing on Wednesday. He told U.S. District Judge Analisa Torres that he was aware of a conflict of interest and was waiving the right to raise it as a future issue because he was the source of the information his lawyers gave to the IRS. Torres pressed Zukerman several times but ultimately allowed the conflict waiver, the Times reports.
Williams & Connolly declined to comment when contacted by the newspaper.
