Federal Judiciary

TAMPER-PROOF
By Mark Thompson
markthomp@yahoo.com
Posted 07-23-08

Justice Richard D. Carruthers let prosecutors get away with piling on one too many charges against a lawyer who helped a con man loot over $27 million from the Evergreen Securities Fund, the Appellate Division said.

Carruthers deftly skirted other potential problems during the trial of James P. Conroy, said a unanimous appellate panel, in upholding Conroy’s convictions on the three main counts of grand larceny. An abundance of evidence supported the jury’s conclusion that Conroy helped William Zylka, the central player in the fraud scheme, bilk the offshore investment fund of millions by, among other things, vastly inflating the value of collateral, the Appellate Division ruled. Based on the evidence, the jury also could have reasonably concluded that, even before he first accompanied Zylka to a meeting with the fund’s manager, Conroy should have known that Zylka “was a virtually impecunious swindler and not the magnanimous billionaire he professed to be.” But there was no evidence that Conroy intended that the two false documents he prepared for Zylka would be used “in an official proceeding,” so Carruthers should have dismissed the convictions on two counts of tampering with physical evidence, the appellate panel said.
 

Full post as published by Judicial Reports on July 23, 2008 (boomark / email).