Legal News

A Look at Mel Weiss?s Lonely Stand

By Nathan Koppel

Now that Bill Lerach has been sentenced, all eyes following the Milberg Weiss prosecution are turning to Mel Weiss, who was indicted last year, along with the firm and others, for allegedly paying kickbacks to class-action clients. (Click here for a Law Blog post on the indictment.)

Weiss has pleaded not guilty and vowed to fight the charges, but he’s gotta feel lonely. The government has netted just about every other big fish in the case. Last week, Lerach, who pleaded guilty to a conspiracy charge, received a sentence of two years in prison. And former Milberg honchos David Bershad and Steven Schulman have also copped plea deals. They are awaiting sentencing.

It’s often risky to be the last holdout when so many others targets in a case have jumped into bed with the government. So far, the evidence in Milberg has shown that it pays not to dawdle in negotiating a plea deal with prosecutors. Bershad was the first major defendant to cut a deal with the government, pleading guilty to a conspiracy count. When Schulman cut his own deal several months later, he pleaded guilty to racketeering, a more serious offense than Bershad’s conspiracy charge.

This, of course, doesn’t necessarily predict doom for Weiss, whose attorney, Benjamin Brafman, declined to comment. Plus, he has time to cop a deal if he wants to — his trial isn’t slated to begin until August.

Still, “plea deals are always better the sooner you get in and cooperate with prosecutors,” says Kirby Behre, a former prosecutor and now a partner at Paul Hastings. Plea benefits, he says, are structured in the hope of “creating a stampede effect to the prosecutors’ door.”

Full post as published by Law Blog - WSJ.com on February 20, 2008 (boomark / email).