Federal Judiciary

It's 50 years...

More to follow.

Update #1 -- From the Sun-Sentinel article:

In the courtroom, Rothstein appeared visibly and dramatically changed by his six months in federal custody, much thinner with closely shorn gray hair and a goatee -- almost unrecognizable from the outsize personality he once was.He was wearing dark pants and an off-white dress shirt, and he was shackled at the waist and ankles. A humble Rothstein addressed the judge and the packed gallery, apologizing for all the harm he caused."I am truly and deeply sorry for what I have done. I don't expect your forgiveness. I don't," Rothstein said. "I am ashamed and embarrassed."

Update #2 -- More from Bob Norman, who was there. The post is excellent and worth a read. Here's a lengthy excerpt:

Rothstein looked like he'd lost a good 30 pounds. His hair was grayer still and he wore a goattee. He actually looked tanned and healthy in a long-sleeve white button-up shirt, dark pants, white socks, black sneakers and the chains shackling him.
His wife, Kim, sat in the second row behind him, and wept when Rothstein entered the courtroom. She sat next with her friend, Stacy Weissman at her left, and Scott's father Harvey at her right. Next to Harvey was Scott's sister, Ronni, and next to her was mother Gay. Also in the row was Kim's attorney, Scott Saidel, who sat next to Weissman.
Cohn opened the proceedings by asking if any of Rothstein's victims were present in the courtroom who wanted to speak. In the back row, a black woman stood up and said she'd like to speak. It was Shirley Blades, the mother (I think) of Charles Blades, from the Blades football family.
In what was a bit of a dramatic moment, she was led up to the podium and Cohn let her speak even though she was there to show Rothstein moral support. She simply turned to Rothstein, with tears streaming down her face, and said, "My brother, may God bless you. May God bless you."
That prompted Gay, Ronni, and Kim all to start crying. Blades was followed by Steven Bitton, a Plantation man who was a client of Rothstein's. He said that he was offered a settlement in a lawsuit with the City of Plantation that Rothstein simply never told him about (outside the courtroom he said the offer was for $650,000 and that the city was now claiming was no longer on the table and that the statute of limitations had passed). "I went to see him every month for four years," said Bitton. "... You trust your attorney. You put your faith in him. ... It's not just the investors [who were hurt]."
Then Nurik took the stage and spoke for over an hour on behalf of Rothstein. He started by asking Cohn to focus on "the rule of law, not the rule of mob, not the influence of the media, not the frenzy."
He asked Cohn to sentence Rothstein for "who he is, not for how he's been demonized." He said Rothstein, who turns 48 tomorrow, had lived 43 years as a "caring, loving person" before he turned to a like of crime.
Nurik also said that nobody would come to speak on his behalf -- expect Blades, whom he said was a surprise even to him -- for "fear of vilification ... and demonization" by the media and community.
Cohn asked Nurik why he thought Rothstein "engendered so much public attention."
"Mr. Rothstein lived larger than life," Nurik answered. "Mr. Rothstein was very brash, very vocal ... his face was plastered on every society page ... he was everywhere, doing everything."
Nurik continued that there was a lot "schadenfreude" in this case -- joy in the demise of another -- and that law firms and lawyers in town were "quite frankly jealous ... a lot of lawyers wondered how [RRA] could grows so fast."
"Isn't his lifestyle part of the manner in which the crimes were committed?" asked Cohn.
Nurik said it was "to some degree," specifically in terms of the political contributions and "certain things in town" (I assume he was talking about charity events) that he did to gain "access to certain people."

***

Then, finally, Cohn spoke. And man did he speak. He waxed poetic about Rothstein's case, saying it was "all about image, wealth, power, and influence" and that Rothstein rivaled "Madison Avenue" in the way he marketed himself.
"[Rothstein's] political connections stretch from the sheriff's office on one end of Broward Boulevard all the way to the Fort Lauderdale Police Department on the other end of Broward Boulevard to the governor's mansion in Tallahassee ... and down Pennsylvania Avenue to the White House," Cohn said.
Cohn mentioned the society pages, the political contributions "funneled through Rothstein's attorneys and their wives," his attending sporting events "with BSO brass," all designed to create an "appearance of legitimacy but we now know was all a facade, a fraud.
"This was a This Ponzi scheme was not the result of a poor buisness decision. Quite the contrary, it was fraud at its inception ... causing 400 investors to love $400 million ... many people have been swept up in the tsunami that followed." Cohn not suprisingly said that he believed Nurik's comparison to the Dreier case was "unpersuasive" saying that there could be "no conduct more reviled" thatn Rothstein's forging of court orders.
"The court must take a step back and ask what makes the Rothstein case different," Cohn said. "Why has this case created such a media frenzy? ... I think the primary reason is that Mr. Rothstein infiltrated so many spheres of our daily life ... politics, sports, charities, the society pages, the legal profession, billboards. Mr. Rothstein was seemingly omnipotent. He was everywhere. He was not only everywhere, but everywhere with excess."
Just before he handed down the 50-year sentence (followed by three years of supervised release), Cohn said he felt that "public perception" was important.
While his mother wept, Rothstein didn't give a visible reaction. When Cohn was finished, he was led out of the courtroom through a side door. He didn't look back.

Full post as published by Southern District of Florida on June 09, 2010 (boomark / email).