Legal News

The PM Roundup: Hsu Trial Starts, Beisner Jumps to Skadden, More . . .

By Ashby Jones

Lots happened today. Lots. Like these things:

Hsu Trial Begins: Norman Hsu (pictured), a former top fundraiser for the Democratic
Party, pleaded guilty on Thursday to fraud charges that prosecutors said swindled investors out of at least $20 million. But he didn’t plea to related campaign-finance charges, and trial on those issues started Tuesday in Manhattan federal court. Dow Jones Newswires.

Liberty City Six Mostly Convicted: Five men were convicted Tuesday of plotting to join forces with al-Qaida to destroy Chicago’s Sears Tower and bomb FBI offices in hopes of igniting an anti-government insurrection. The jury in Miami acquitted another member of the so-called “Liberty City Six” in the sixth day of deliberations. Two previous trials ended in mistrials when jurors could not agree on the men’s guilt or innocence. AP. USA Today.

Pendergest-Holt Indicted: A federal grand jury in Houston returned a two-count indictment today charging Laura Pendergest-Holt, the chief investment officer of Houston-based Stanford Financial Group, with conspiring to obstruct an SEC proceeding investigating SFG, as well as a substantive count of obstructing the SEC proceeding. AP. Bloomberg.

Beisner Jumps to Skadden: Heavyweight products-liability lawyer John Beisner has left O’Melveny & Myers for Skadden.

Wachtell Speaks to the WSJ: Well, sort of. Marty Lipton, Jay Lorsch and Ted Mirvis, lawyers of note at the famously press-shy Wachtell, penned an op-ed in this morning’s WSJ on Sen. Chuck Schumer’s (D-NY) proposed “shareholder’s bill of rights.” They’re not fans:

“The stated goal of the legislation — ‘to prioritize the long-term health of firms and their shareholders’” — is commendable, they write. “The trouble is that its provisions actually encourage the opposite.” WSJ.

Full post as published by Law Blog - WSJ.com on May 12, 2009 (boomark / email).