Seymour Lazar, retired attorney and named plaintiff in many class action lawsuits brought by shareholder advocate lawfirm Milberg Weiss, is facing a federal grand jury indictment regarding his alleged receipt of millions of dollars in illegal kickbacks from the New York lawfirm.

Via the New York Times:

Ex-Lawyer Is Indicted on Kickbacks in Lawsuits

By JOHN M. BRODER
June 25, 2005

LOS ANGELES, June 24 - A federal grand jury here has indicted a retired 78-year-old Palm Springs lawyer for allegedly receiving at least $2.4 million in kickbacks from one of the nation's most prominent plaintiffs' law firms.

The indictment charges that the defendant, Seymour M. Lazar, and members of his family served as plaintiffs in dozens of class action and shareholder lawsuits filed by the New York law firm of Milberg Weiss Bershad & Schulman, perhaps the country's most aggressive filer of lawsuits against corporations.

Milberg Weiss has won billions of dollars in claims on behalf of shareholders against corporations, including lawsuits filed on behalf of investors in Enron, Halliburton, Lucent Technologies, HealthSouth and Tyco. President Bush and many other Republicans consider the firm and others like it to be enemies of business who use courts to enrich themselves at the expense of consumers.

The indictment, handed up by a federal grand jury here on Thursday, charges Mr. Lazar with mail fraud, money laundering and conspiracy to obstruct justice, among other charges. Milberg Weiss is not a defendant in the indictment and is not named anywhere in it. It is referred to only as "the New York law firm" with whom Mr. Lazar did business. But a spokesman for Milberg Weiss confirmed that it was the law firm cited throughout the indictment...

...According to the indictment, Mr. Lazar, as a shareholder in the sued companies, would have been entitled to a prorated portion of any settlement won by Milberg Weiss. Instead, it said, the law firm illegally paid him part of its lawyers' fees, frequently funneled through a second defendant, Paul T. Selzer, 64, a lawyer in Palm Springs.

Mr. Lazar's lawyer, Thomas H. Bienert, said he believed that the government was trying to pressure his client to take a plea deal and testify against Milberg Weiss. "It appears this is an effort to get Mr. Lazar to say negative things about his class action counsel and become a government witness," Mr. Bienert said...

..."Milberg Weiss has cooperated with the government's investigation, which has continued for more than three years," it said. "Although the indictment does not name Milberg Weiss, it unfairly implicates the firm in the wrongdoing alleged against Lazar. We are outraged that the allegations have been made against the firm and reject them as baseless."

Check out the full NYT article here.

Will Lazar roll over on Milberg and is there anything to tell? Is Bill Lerach also a target? Tune in next week to find out.

And in the meantime, Securities Litigation Watch has a link to the full 70 some-odd page indictment. Click on over here to take a look.

-- MDT

Labels: Enron, money laundering, Tyco