Money is in. Murder is out. High-profile crime seems to have gone upscale (think Rod Blagojevich, think Bernard Madoff), blue collar turning white.
But really good criminal defense lawyers are adaptable.
So it should be no surprise that Gerald L. Shargel, an attorney who made his reputation defending all sorts of guys named Gotti, is now running interference for Marc S. Dreier.
Dreier, 58 and a Harvard Law graduate, was arrested on Dec. 7 on charges related to alleged fraud against various hedge funds.
Federal authorities first claimed that Dreier, the head of the Manhattan-based Drier Firm LLP, embezzled more than $100 million from various concerns. Since then, they have revised the figure upward to $380 million.
According to the criminal complaint, Dreier obtained money by presenting false documents to lure investments.
Before he was arrested in the U.S., Dreier was arrested in Toronto on charges that he impersonated another lawyer in an attempt to sell $45 million in false promissory notes.
Dreier was released on bail of $100,000 in Canada. But Shargel’s efforts to have him released on bail in the U.S. have so far been unsuccessful.
Given his earlier press reviews, there is little question that Shargel has the savvy and the experience to represent Dreier, though the nicknames and the allegations in the case may not be as colorful as those in some of his earlier efforts.
As Joyce Wadler noted in The New York Times in 1998, Shargel’s past clients have had a variety of street names, including Mickey Hop, Sigmund the Sea Monster and Goombah Johnnie.
But the best known was John J. Gotti Jr., the head of the Gambino crime family known as the “Dapper Don,” for his style of dressing or the “Teflon Don” for his ability to stay out of prison.
Shargel and Bruce Cutler were Gotti’s go-to attorneys, though as a client he was sometimes unappreciative of their efforts, calling them in secretly recorded comments “high-priced errand boys” and worse.
In the early 1990s, a judge removed Shargel and Cutler as Gotti’s lawyers because they had been overheard on wiretaps at Gotti’s headquarters.
The mob leader was then convicted in 1992 of racketeering and multiple murders. He died in prison 10 years later.
Shargel went on to represent Gotti’s son, John A. Gotti (known as “Junior”) in 1998 and 1999. The younger Gotti eventually pleaded guilty to fraud and extortion charges.
Also on Shargel’s client list was the elder Gotti’s brother, Peter Gotti, the so-called “Dumbest Don.” He was convicted in 2003 on extortion and money-laundering charges.
Shargel has even represented a Gotti who isn’t really a Gotti. In 2005, he led the defense for the rap producer Christopher Lorenzo, who was also known at Christopher Gotti.
Lorenzo and his brother, Irving, who also used the last name Gotti, ran the record label known as Murder Inc.
Both were charged with laundering more than $1 million in illegal drug profits. Their trial ended in an acquittal.
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