LawFuel – Legal Newswire – MICHAEL J. GARCIA, the United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York, announced that SAMUEL A. FISHMAN,
a former partner at a major United States law firm (the “Firm”),
pleaded guilty earlier today before United States District Judge
VICTOR MARRERO to a mail fraud charge arising out of a multi-year
scheme to defraud the Firm and its clients out of hundreds of
thousands of dollars.
According to the Information filed in this
case and statements made at FISHMAN’s guilty plea proceeding:
FISHMAN was a partner at the Firm from at least 1993 to
2005, based in its New York offices. As part of his duties,
FISHMAN was responsible for supervising and approving client
invoices on matters for which he was the designated billing
partner. In that capacity, FISHMAN caused, in aggregate,
hundreds of thousands of dollars in fraudulent expenses to be
billed to his clients.
To carry out his scheme, FISHMAN
intentionally mischaracterized some non-reimbursable costs (such
as local meals and parking) as other, reimbursable expenses (such
as photocopying and express mail), and inflated other, otherwise
legitimate expenses. When the Firm discovered FISHMAN’s scheme,
it reimbursed to its clients hundreds of thousands of dollars
that had been fraudulently charged.
FISHMAN also defrauded the Firm by obtaining
reimbursement from the Firm for personal expenses (such as hotel
bills) by falsely claiming that they were business expenses.
FISHMAN, age 51, of Fair Lawn, New Jersey, pleaded
guilty to a criminal Information charging him with one count of
mail fraud. He faces a maximum of twenty years in prison at his
sentencing, currently scheduled for June 27, 2008.
Mr. GARCIA praised the work of the New York Division of
the United States Postal Inspection Service and thanked the
Inspectors for their assistance in this case.
This case is being prosecuted by the Major Crimes Unit
of the U.S. Attorney’s Office. Assistant United States Attorney
SARAH LAI is in charge of the prosecution.
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