Upscale restaurants frequented by Dewey lawyers play role in trial
If jurors feel hunger pangs during the trial of three former Dewey & LeBoeuf leaders, there’s good reason: Upscale restaurants are a backdrop for meetings discussing management decisions in the alleged conspiracy to defraud lenders.
Charged in the alleged plot are former chairman Steven Davis, former executive director Stephen DiCarmine, and former chief financial officer Joel Sanders.
The Wall Street Journal Law Blog has a guide to the restaurants mentioned at trial, including these:
• Del Frisco’s. Prosecutors allege the conspiracy began after a 2008 dinner at this Manhattan steakhouse attended by finance employees and Sanders. After the dinner, prosecutors allege, Sanders and others created a master plan of accounting adjustments needed to satisfy a bank covenant.
• Grand Havana Room. This members-only cigar club was the site where an idea was floated to finance bank debt with a $150 million bond offering, according to testimony.
• Circo. DiCarmine asked the firm’s former finance director to discuss the firm’s bank covenants in a meeting at this Italian restaurant, which submitted an $800 claim in Dewey’s bankruptcy.
• Le Bernardin. Former Dewey partner Ralph Ferrari testified he dined with firm leaders at this French seafood restaurant in 2010. He thought he had rebuffed an offer to become vice chair of the firm during this meeting, but an announcement weeks later said he was named to the position.
