Feds probe NYC civil court following Silver’s arrest (can you say kickback?)

The American Tort Reform Assn calls NYC's asbestos court the nation’s top “judicial hellhole”. Silver has been blocking tort-reform bills for decades.

Silver's arrest centers on his no-show legal work for asbestos-profiteer, Weitz and Luxemberg, (as well as millions in bribes and kickbacks from fixing real-estate cases)..... judges with ties to Silver and his lifelong pal, Jonathan Lippman, the chief judge of the state Court of Appeals, presided over the cases.

Silver was “of counsel” to Weitz & Luxemberg which earned unusual fast-track “red-carpet treatment” “better judges” and first dibs on jurors. Sherry Klein Heitler, the chief asbestos judge (at Weitz & Luxenberg’s request), reversed a 20-year rule barring punitive damages, triggering much bigger asbestos jury awards.

Judge Joan Madden consolidated unrelated asbestos cases, which resulted in huge increases in jury verdicts — some $7-$24 million per plaintiff between 2010-2014, data by Bates White Economic Consulting show.

In one consolidated case, W/L won a $190M award. Of 15 mesothelioma verdicts in the last four years, Silver’s firm won $273M of the $313.5M awarded--- 2-3 times larger than other courts. It’s unclear which judges might be targeted. The US Attorney’s Office could neither confirm nor deny any probe. An FBI spokesman would not comment.

Let's not be fooled---Silver is grossly underestimating his payoffs b/c jail-time is determined by how much he stole.

L/E needs to determine how many US govt checks Silver is cashing. Silver has been characterized as "living simply"---giving no indication of his vast wealth.

Prolly b/c he also profits from being a "disadvantaged minority." PBS-TV ran the series on "Orthodox in America". Since the days of LBJ, Orthodox were designated "disadvantaged minorities" by the US govt and given privileged access to multiple US govt giveaway programs.

Oftentimes news organs run stories about competing Orthodox groups fighting among themselves---but the internecine warfare is all about which sect controls the millions of our tax dollars that flow to the "disadvantaged minorities." Vote-crazed politicians trip all over themselves to side with one sect or the other.

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Perry Weitz and his $30 million Challenger 605. / Photo: Facebook / PatrickMcMullan.com

Perry Weitz is living the lavish life. Weitz brags about his $8 billion in asbestos and defective drug settlements. The Brooklyn-born Weitz describes himself as “a clenched-jaw champion of justice for the little guy” — proudly lives lavishly, with a private jet, two huge yachts and a 44-acre ranch outside Aspen, Colo, flying-in at some $40,000 per trip. (1/29 NY POST REPORT).

Time to mobilize the Bank Secrecy Act----to follow the Silver/Lippman paper trail and determine how govt monies changed hands; to determine the scope and dimension of collusion in sub rosa deals, govt fraud, bribes, kickbacks, money laundering.... and who might have personally profited.

<><> L/E needs to examine Lippman's judicial accounts and Weitz and Luxemberg---Silver's law firm accounts---

<><> Joint bank accounts might be used to facilitate the transfer funds from one account to another, and/or wire-transferred offshore;

<><> To cover their tracks, fake invoices might be created to show that money deposited into accounts was being used for legitimate purposes.

<><> Financial schemes scheme might be advanced by issuing phony statements of payments from financial sources that actually covered the transfer of funds for insiders' personal use and/or for redistribution schemes.

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NOTE WELL Under the Bank Secrecy Act, banks are required to establish, implement and maintain programs designed to detect and report suspicious activity indicative of money laundering and other financial crimes. “The Bank Secrecy Act was enacted to protect the public from harm by identifying and detecting money laundering from criminal enterprises, terrorism, tax evasion or other unlawful activities,” the special agent in charge for Internal Revenue Service Criminal Investigation, explained.

Shady banking transactions could be prosecuted under the (1) Bank Secrecy ACT, (2) RICO, and, (3) the Hobbs Act.

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<><> L/E should get ahold of: (1) copies of checks, (2) wire transfers, (3) account statements, (4) invoices, (5) bills, (6) delivery tickets, (7) correspondence including snail mail, e-mail, mobile devices, cell phones, (8) contracts, (9) loan agreements, (10) other account books or official records.

L/E should also explore (a) monies paid to brokers, sub-brokers, (b) family members, (c) mortgage brokers, (d) financial managers, and, (e) real estate agents, brokers, and developers.

<><> L/E should scrutinize Lippman's judicial accounts and Silver's law firm bank accounts for suspicious activites: (A) large deposits, (B) funds transferred from one account into another, (C) frequent requests for withdrawals.

<><> Bank records might also show diversions to secret LLC accounts, to money launder and to operate personal ventures.

Tax fraud may also be a factor, facilitated by withdrawals, gift cards purchases, credit card purchases and intra-bank transfers from legal bank accounts into personal accounts, or redistribution schemes.

<><> A huge tipoff is whether bank withdrawals support and luxurious lifestyle including payments for real estate, investment and stock holdings, jewelry, luxury vehicles, resort travel....... and gifts from luxury outlets for wives and mistresses.

FBI TIPS PAGE--YOU MAY REMAIN ANONYMOUS ---https://tips.fbi.gov

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SAMPLE LETTER---SUBJECT: Collusion, conspiracy, bribery
Silver's law firm---Weitz and Luxemberg
Judge Jonathan Lippman's judicial bank accounts
IN RE: financial irregularities
REFERENCE: govt fraud, falsified documents, wire transfers, accounting fraud, etc.

NARRATIVE Taxpayers demand to know the scope and dimension of multiple conspiracies to collude in sub rosa deals to personally profit and/or to facilitate redistribution schemes of govt monies.

OF INTEREST TO LAW ENFORCEMENT The FBI should interrogate individuals for evidence of multiple schemes to falsify official documents to further fraudulent schemes. The FBI should investigate any and all official documents on file.

Crimes might include---conspiracy, collusion, falsifying official documents (a felony), money laundering, tax evasion, extortion, theft, misuse of govt facilities.

Examine Silver and Lippman's tax returns with a fine-tooth comb.....especially entries for "interest income."

Silver was no-show “of counsel” to Weitz & Luxemberg, which earned hundreds of millions of dollars in unusual judicial fast-track “red-carpet" deals, facilitated by Silver.

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?

Dare we hope this leads to Cuomo?

TWO WINNERS (GAG)---Silver exhibits the survival skills of
a cockroach---and Cuomo has the charisma of a boiled kale stem.

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1/26 NYPOST.COM / By Fredric U. Dicker
Cuomo ‘on edge’ as federal corruption probe continues

EXCERPT Cuomo is “freaked-out and furious” over Silver's bombshell criminal charges — “obsessed with fear’’ b/c of the corruption probe. Cuomo is described as “doubly enraged’’ by the decision to bring the criminal charges against Silver just hours after the governor delivered his SOTU — and less than 24 hours after that, to vocally indict Albany’s “three men in a room’’ culture in which Cuomo is the lead player.“Cuomo feels Preet just walked all over him,’’ said the source. Knowledgeable insiders, including L/E experts, said it wasn’t accidental that Bharara brought charges against Silver just hours after Cuomo’s SOTU.--SNIP--

SOURCE http://nypost.com/2015/01/26/cuomo-on-edge-as-federal-corruption-probe-continues/

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