Will Justice Be Served In The Trustee’s Lawsuit Against Sterling?

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• XtreemIcon February 24, 2012 at 6:29 am

  Justice won’t be served because Picard will still make tons of money off of this with absolutely no penalties. The worst that will happen to him is the case gets thrown out.
• srt February 24, 2012 at 8:16 am

  ‘My hope is that justice will ultimately prevail in this matter. But I fear that those with self-serving interests will do all they can to keep justice from being served.’

  All the book writing, tee shirt selling, hidden agendas, etc. should have no bearing on justice being served. If it does, it certainly doesn’t say much about the judge who is responsible for making a ruling on this by 5 March. His sole responsibility is to look at the facts, not the propaganda surrounding this case. Each side doing their own posturing is pretty common but a competent judge should be able to weed through that and deal with facts only.

  If it does go to a jury trial, well then anything can happen there.
• Mark February 24, 2012 at 8:45 am

  The most likely scenario here is that the Wilpon’s will have to pay back the 83 million in “profits” and the rest of the case will ultimately get tossed. Most judges don’t like to throw out cases at summary judgment but Rakoff isn’t most judges. The problem with Harrington’s deposition and ultimately her credibility is that she subsequently became a whistleblower in another SEC case and so one is left to speculate as to why she would not have done the same thing here if she was so sure that something was amiss. Let’s remember that she was at the time an industry expert. So if she couldn’t go to the SEC due to lack of evidence and could not provide any proof to Katz then how could the Katz/Wilpon’s be held to a higher standard than Harrington? The Mets attorneys have done a competent job throughout this but not a great job. It’s the difference between being a trial attorney and being a motions attorney. Big firms are great for writing briefs and arguing the subtleties of the law but sometimes don’t always choose the most effective strategy. As the writer suggests the really sad part about this case is that there are no checks and balances on Picard. The most likely outcome is the Mets having to pay back the $83 million in profits but Picard has probably already billed that amount so the victims will not be getting anything while Picard makes his firm millions upon millions of dollars. The problem with cases like this is that Picard has no incentive to settle. He is playing with house money. For better or worse the American justice system is designed so that most cases settle. I would be surprised if Rakoff separates any of the case out at this point. If he grants summary judgment on the 83 milllion than I think he will throw out the rest of the case. The reason I say this is that Rakoff would not want to prejudice the jury any more than they have already been by a case that has been shamelessly fought in the papers and online so if he feels that one part of the case should go forward he will probably let the jury decide the case in its entirety. As an attorney I would caution everyone that what you are hearing in the media has been funnelled through the eyes of the reporter. Reporters generally speaking are not attorneys. Sometimes a layperson doesn’t really understand what is the most important item to focus on and there is no substitute to being there. That is why cases are so difficult to overturn on appeal because the judge or jury has the best opportunity to observe the witnesses. Although I am licensed to practice law in Virginia and in bankruptcy court I have no personal knowledge of the case and am just offering my observations as an outside attorney following the case.
  • srt February 24, 2012 at 8:54 am

    I’ve always been interested in any attorney’s opinion I’ve seen posted on this so far.
    Much of what you said here makes good sense to me.

    Regarding Picard, the way I’ve understood it is the more money he wins back for victims, the more money his firm makes as well. Stands to reason ‘settling’ wouldn’t be his first choice. Something wrong with the system here on this one.
    • stick February 24, 2012 at 9:50 am

      he double dips.

      he charges by the hour, plus gets a % of everything recovered. So he has absolutely no incentive to settle. rather, he makes out by dragging it on for years, even if in the end he gets the same payout.

      Now, if he was 100% on contingency, then you would see a desire to settle!
      • Metro12 February 24, 2012 at 9:57 am

        I don’t think that’s true. I read they only bill by the hour and get no percentage. That’s standard for bankruptcy court.
    • Metro12 February 24, 2012 at 9:54 am

      Picard and his large staff are all billing by the hour. They could recover zero dollars and his large staff would still be billing the roughly $300 million they have already billed the bankruptcy court up to now. So, in essence, he has no incentive to settle or to file reasonable lawsuits. The more he can drag things out in court, the more money he makes. He is the only one getting richer by the hour as these cases drag on and get heavily litigated. It’s in his interest to drag things out.

      When the last Madoff case is finished in the courts years and years from now, he and his staff will likely have billed about $600 million or more in legal fees. They have all gotten rich for life.
  • Metsie February 24, 2012 at 12:32 pm

    I was under the impression that there was no Jury in this case but I could be wrong!

    I Agree with the point that Picard is basically collecting money for himself and his firm and getting squat for the Victims.

    These cases should be set at a flat rate for the attorney’s and they get the fee they get regardless of how much they get back!

    Or it should be limited to 2% or some other very low number to stop them from wasting a ton of clients time and dragging things out to increase the bill!

    But unfortunatly Lawyers make the rules in this country!
• Donal February 24, 2012 at 9:17 am

  “Too many have already written the end to this passion play even before the tribunal begins”

  Nice imagery.

  I’ve read that pretty much all of Picard’s “expert witnesses” have been tossed out of the case.
• Metro12 February 24, 2012 at 9:43 am

  “I’ve found Rich Sandomir to the only journalist who has consistently reported on this entire saga both accurately and objectively.”

  Joe D, I really appreciate the reasoned and objective way you’ve handled this issue –as opposed to the very vitriolic, self-serving and narrow approach by many bloggers, reporters and fans. Yet I have to strongly disagree with you about Sandomir.

  I don’t question his accuracy at all as he no doubt has the reputation of his employer to uphold in that respect. But his objectivity has been in the toilet. Early on he served as the unabashed and enthusiastic PR mouthpiece for Picard, publishing story after story — based on court papers under seal or exclusive access to Picard’s lackeys — that painted a one-sided, damaging and often irrelevant story of the Mets owners’ involvement with Madoff. Only after the case got into Rakoff’s court and the tide started turning against Picard did Sandomir seem to temper his position and move a little toward the center. I attribute that to merely him seeing the writing on the wall and not wanting to end up looking like a fool.

  Is he better than some? Sure, but only by comparison. He looks completely objective placed next to someone like Megdal. But his agenda nonetheless has poked through strongly throughout all this.
  • Seligman February 24, 2012 at 10:20 am

    I agree entirely. On the onset of this newstory, long before all the other newspapers or bloggers caught up, Sandomir appeared to be leaning heavily toward Picard and only in the last 3-4 months has his reporting been more upright.
• stick February 24, 2012 at 9:52 am

  at this point, just get it over with, so the team/owners can get out of limbo and actually plan for the future, and go about rebuilding the team.
• Des February 24, 2012 at 11:41 am

  “Both the victims who the trustee represents and the owners of the Mets deserve the right to choose a jury from a public that hasn’t been tainted . . . .”

  Have the Wilpons also been victims? The Wilpons made many investments with Madow. Has their integrated rate of return been consistent with the marketplace over their long investment period? Is it possible that all parties have been victimized? Has anybody done the long, tedious work of figuring whether their returns have been poor, excessive or just average in the market? How will Judge Rakow view these issues?

  If one of our attorney has insight into the points raised and knowledge of the relevancy of the Wilpon largesse because of Uncle Bernie, I’d be very interested.
• Natalie February 24, 2012 at 12:25 pm

  I’ll just be happy when all of this is over and we can talk about the Mets in a baseball sense 24/7. Until then
• Mr North Jersey February 24, 2012 at 12:48 pm

  “I’ve found Rich Sandomir to the only journalist who has consistently reported on this entire saga both accurately and objectively.”

  This.
• Joey D. February 24, 2012 at 1:54 pm

  Who knows how much of Piccard’s case has been presented for public consumption. Same with the Mets.

  Also, we’ve seen how unsubstantiated innuendo has influenced juries and arbitrators so it could do the same with the jury with the upcoming trial. Know it sounds simplisitic but attorneys with the better acting skills have often been able to impress the jury with their presentation more than with what they actually presented.

  So for the Wilpons sake, I hope they have legal counsel that also took a few classses at the new school.

  Also, regarding billing his clients more than they can get in return, he is not being paid by those he is representing but by the Securities Investor Protection Corporation, a non-profit government sponsored organization whose funding comes from within the industry, not the victims.

  http://www.answers.com/topic/securities-investor-protection-corporation-sipc
• Ken Tomlin February 24, 2012 at 4:49 pm

  Since this situation with the Ponzi sceme first came to light, I’ve gone from someone who wanted Wilpon out to now seeing him as a sympathetic figure. I respect you for just allowing this to play out and to call on others to be more objective, but I think your plea will fall on deaf ears. We live in different times now and this is the norm.