Posted on 01/29/2015 6:53:19 AM PST by Liz
Percy Weitz, founder and president of Weitz and Luxemberg, the high profile law firm that paid Democrat Silver millions for virtually no work gave Silver his walking papers. “We were shocked to learn of impropriety in the referral of cases to our law firm,” said Weitz. Silver pocketed more than $3.2 million in referral fees on top of his $120,000 annual base law firm pay. Weitz said: "..... we were never told that he was going to allocate, or had allocated, state funding (tax dollars) in exchange for client referrals.”
Silver's scheme delivered $500,000 state grants (tax dollars) to Columbia-Presbyterian Medical Center, ostensibly for research, in exchange for referring patients to W/L.....The criminal complaint noted that W/L — on the advice of Silver — initially sought to block a subpoena from Gov. Andrew's Cuomo’s Moreland Commission when the panel asked W/L about its financial dealings with Silver.
(Excerpt) Read more at nypost.com ...
Really? Corrupt Rats are more common than dirt.
LOL, whata laugh.
W&L were in it up to their scalps.
Unfortunately this type of corruption is rampant among dems and republicans. The whole system is corrupt from top to bottom. Political power corrupts everything and everyone it touches.
I’m frankly giddy this turd has finally been flushed....you know as well as I do that he has been terrible for the State and has wielded too much power.
Democrats to the core.
You got that right.
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W/L NEEDS TO BE RIGOROUSLY SCRUTINIZED for possible fraudulent accounting adjustments, and other fraudulent conduct, to make it appear that the law firm increased revenue, decreased expenses, or limited distributions to partners.
Some of the fraudulent accounting adjustments and acts might have been the MO for money-laundering, govt fraud, tax evasion, and wire-transfers offshore :
a. Reversing disbursement write-offs---improperly reversing millions of dollars of write-offs of client disbursements that the Firm had no intention or reasonable expectation of collecting.
b. Reclassifying disbursement payments – improperly reclassifying millions of dollars of payments that had been applied to client disbursements; and applying the payments instead to outstanding fee amounts.
c. Reclassifying "Of Counsel" payments – millions of dollars of compensation to Of Counsel lawyers as equity partner compensation may have been reclassified. "Of Counsel" compensation is generally treated as an expense in financial statements.
d. Reversing credit card write-offs – charges from an American Express and other cards that had not previously been expensed, and were not chargeable to clients, might have been falsely written-off. Hiding the amount in the books as an unbilled client disbursement receivable then illegally reversing the write-off at year-end. The amount might have remained on the books as an unbilled client disbursement receivable.
e. Reclassifying salaried partner expenses – improperly reclassifying salaried partners as equity partner so as to issue millions of dollars in compensation, and amortization of benefits related to salaried, non-equity partners. Treating payouts amounts expenses on financial statements, so the reclassification had the effect of falsely reducing expenses. This change in treatment may not have been disclosed to the Firm’s auditors nor disclosed on the audited financial statements.
f. perhaps fraudulently seeking sought backdated checks to post to the prior year to hide the date on which checks were received. The effort was to minimize the risk that auditors would discover that December checks received in January, including backdated checks, were being posted to the prior year.
g. Applying partner capital as fee revenue – millions that that had been contributed by a partner to satisfy his capital requirement might have been applied as a fee payment for the client of a different partner. This amount might have been illegally backed out of fees and applied to the partner’s capital account for the fiscal year, but might have been reapplied as a fee payment for the same client.
h. Applying loan repayments as revenue – bank loans that benefitted partners might have been restructured so that the loan repayment would increase the Firm’s revenue.
I. Did the Firm fraudulently claim revenue that they did not have and pushing expenses and financial obligations off into the future?
Yeah, people in politics love power and money. They just use the people
The problem is that our system does not allow for turds like Silver to die screaming, in front of the court house, as an object lesson for those who aspire to “public service.”
In 2003, Silver’s chief counsel, Michael Boxley, was charged with rape and marched out of Assembly offices in handcuffs. Boxley was later convicted. More below.
Although then-DA Paul Clyne was a fellow Democrat, Silver was furious at being embarrassed. “He was fuming,” one Albany vet says, “and swore he would get a DA in there that he could control and who would never embarrass him.”
Silver found his candidate for the 2004 election, little-known latino lawyer, David Soares (is he here legally?); Silver engineered the support of uber-liberal Working Families Party, a union front group which went to work for Soares.
Against heavy odds, Soares triumphed in the primary and general election. Soares remains the Albany DA, yet never finds anything amiss in the Legislature. Like Sgt. Schultz in “Hogan’s Heroes,” Soares knows nothing.
Sadly, the cabal of federal prosecutors in the Northern District, which covers the capital, avoids political cases like the plague, as do the five DAs in the city.
Were it not for Preet Bharara, the Manhattan federal prosecutor, Silver could have kept his alleged scams going for another 20 years.
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NOTE WRT BOXLEY:
FBI TIPS PAGE--YOU MAY REMAIN ANONYMOUS ---https://tips.fbi.gov
BACKSTORY In 2014, the Brown & Weinraub lobbying firm, listed ex-Silver aide---sexual predator Michael Boxley---as a lobbyist in Albany.
In June 2003, Albany police removed Boxley, then Silver’s chief legal counsel, from the Capitol in cuffs after a female legislative staffer accused him of rape.
Boxley quit the Silver job after pleading guilty to misdemeanor sexual misconduct.
The plea required him to register as a sex offender and serve six years’ probation. His law license was suspended. In accepting the deal, he admitted having sex with a 22-year-old legislative staffer without her consent.
The FBI needs to scrutinize Silver's deals w/ the Brown & Weinraub lobbying firm......Boxley's employer.
“During the mid-1980s dairy farmers decided there was too much cheap milk at the supermarket.
So the government bought and slaughtered 1.6 million cows.
How come the government never does anything like this with lawyers?”
— P.J. O’Rourke
Despite corruption charges, arrest, and arraignment, Silver is scheduled to vote on handing out nearly $95 million tax dollars in state grants and loans — despite allegations he funneled taxpayer money to a Columbia U cancer doctor as part of a long-running kickback scheme.
Silver is one of three voting members of the Public Authorities Control Board---the upcoming Board's agenda includes a residential real-estate project in Silver's district. The 168-unit apartment building got $78.5 million worth of public financing that feds highlighted in the criminal complaint against Silver.
According to the feds, Silver used his power over development incentives to scam about $700,000 in kickbacks from a law firm to which he steered business from two major developers, including 100-year-old billionaire Leonard Litwin.
FBI TIPS PAGE--YOU MAY REMAIN ANONYMOUS ---https://tips.fbi.gov
Q: What do you call a lawyer with an IQ of 50
A: Senator.
Q: What’s brown and looks really good on a lawyer?
A: A Doberman.
Q: What’s the difference between a lawyer and a prostitute?
A: A prostitute will stop screwing you when you’re dead.
Q: Why did God make snakes just before lawyers?
A: For practice
They did all of it and more.
Actually, finding a non-corrupt ‘rat would be a rarity.
Democrats inherently see political office as license for graft.
I like the last one the best...
Maybe this guy Bharara remembers the career path Giuliani took and wants the same. He was appointed by Obama and is a lifelong Dem. Why else would he go after Shelly Silver?
A: Because down deep they are not that bad.
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