Friday, October 31, 2008

New Orleans Lawyer Pleads Guilty to Embezzling $30,000,000 from Former Firm

This case has been bouncing around the local federal court recently, and the local news just announced this morning that Jamie Perdigao has probably struck a plea deal to charges of defrauding his former law firm, Adams and Reese, and their clients of thirty million dollars. Luckily, he’s not one of our alum, and I won’t mention what law school he went to, but I’m sure he got a great education and only missed that one day’s class in professional responsibility where they discussed the illegality of submitting phony invoices to your clients and pocketing the remitted fees.

Funny - if you look him up on Westlaw’s Legal Directory (database ID: WLD), it says “Current Firm Information Unknown” but still gives his e-mail address at arlaw.com and what is, presumably, his old phone number there.

The more colorful aspects of this story are the civil suit and counter-claims Perdigao filed; the details sound like a Grisham novel. He tried to get the local U.S. Attorney’s office to recuse itself, because he said they were unwilling to persue some of the leads he gave them which, he claimed, would have lead to overturning former Governor Edwards’ multiple convictions for fraud and other misdeeds.

He also filed suit against Adams and Reese, alleging that they were involved with Worldcom’s financial shenanigans and other sundry shady activity. Neither of these suits or claims got very far.

Thirty million dollars. That’s not like petty cash from the cigar box under the cashier counter. What kind of person does this sort of thing and thinks they can get away with it?

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