Prosecutor Says Rothstein Firm Was a Racketeering Enterprise
There are only a handful of cases in which a law firm has been named as a racketeering enterprise.
The case against lawyer Scott Rothstein, founder of Rothstein Rosenfeldt Adler, is one of them, the Sun Sentinel reports. Interim U.S. Attorney Jeffrey Sloman called the law firm a racketeering enterprise yesterday, an accusation that carries some risks, according to the story.
Nova Southeastern University law professor Bob Jarvis said jurors can have a hard time following the money flow among conspirators in cases involving the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act. “As a prosecutor I have to connect a lot of dots,” he told the newspaper.
So far only Rothstein has been charged in the alleged $1 billion Ponzi scheme. He pleaded not guilty yesterday.
“This case is a glaring example of greed run amok, of someone who gave up all principles for a lifestyle he could not afford,” Sloman said yesterday at a news conference. Bloomberg covered his comments. “Now, the mansions, Ferraris, yachts, the law firm and his friends are all gone,” Sloman said.
Rothstein is accused of selling stakes in phony court settlements to investors by forging court orders and judges’ signatures, the Daily Business Review reports. The investigation isn’t over; the probe of possible accomplices could take months, the Sun Sentinel reports in a separate story.
“The net could be wide,” the Sentinel story says, “from members of Rothstein’s law firm to middlemen who brought in investors to bank executives who handled the millions that flowed through the scheme.”
