'Totally Fooled' by Now-Convicted Rothstein, Law Partner Tries to Explain What He Did for $450K Pay
“Totally fooled” by his then-law partner, Scott Rothstein, who is now serving a 50-year sentence for running a $1.2 billion Ponzi scheme, a Florida lawyer tried to explain in a deposition today what he did to earn $450,000 a year from Rothstein Rosenfeldt Adler—plus another $475,000 in payments for a Manhattan apartment.
Russell Adler said that he helped the firm go paperless and was helping it to build a premier personal injury practice, reports the Heard Along the Coast blog of the South Florida Business Journal.
Attorney Chuck Lichtman, who is representing a law firm bankruptcy trustee seeking to recapture money from Adler, pointed out that the practice group was bringing in about $3 million a year when RRA imploded a year ago as Rothstein’s scheme to sell purported income from fake legal settlements came to light. And Adler acknowledged that to be a correct figure.
But Adler noted for the record the “cynicism” in Lichtman’s voice, contending that the personal injury practice was “a premier group in the making.”
Although he was a vice president of the law firm, Adler apparently was not an equity partner, the article says.
