Shortly before he was elected New York’s governor last year, Eliot Spitzer made headlines by returning $124,445 worth of campaign contributions he had received since 2003 from lawyers associated with the then just-indicted Milberg Weiss law firm.
At the time, Spitzer’s spokesman claimed that he and his campaign strategists “held ourselves to a higher standard” regarding acceptance of contributions. The returned Milberg Weiss funds were hardly missed, however, as Spitzer raised more than $20 million in campaign cash on the way to a landslide victory last November running on a “Clean Up Albany” platform promising widespread reforms.
Milberg Weiss is the subject of an unprecedented federal investigation and 20-count indictment alleging that for two decades, senior members of the widely celebrated firm committed bribery, fraud, perjury, racketeering, filing false tax returns and obstructing justice while secretly paying off lead plaintiffs in class-action lawsuits. The firm denies all of the allegations
Lead plaintiffs are appointed by a court to represent all members of a class in a class-action suit and perform the crucial act of selecting and recommending to the court attorneys to serve as lead counsel in a suit. Being favored by lead plaintiffs helps a firm gain new business andfees.
A review of New York Board of Elections data shows, however, that when Spitzer announced return of the $124,445, he had also received an additional $42,555 in such contributions in the two years prior to his gubernatorial campaign.
Spitzer was first elected as New York’s attorney general in 1998. Throughout his tenure as AG, he lodged — or threatened — often-sensational official charges against some of the nation’s best-known corporate and Wall Street financial kingpins.
When The Examiner sought the list of individual donations that equaled the $124,445, Christine Anderson, Spitzer’s spokesman in the governor’s office, referred the request to officials with the 2006 campaign, saying, “I just don’t have access to that information from where I sit now. It would be in the campaign’s finance database.”
Allison Giard of the 2006 Spitzer campaign did not respond to The Examiner’s request.
Among the $42,555 Spitzer received from Milberg Weiss partners in 2001 and 2002 were $10,000 from Melvyn Weiss and $10,000 from David Bershad, the former managing partner who pleaded guilty July 10 of crimes in connection with his management of the firm’s kickback funds.
Bershad is expected to be the government’s chief witness against Weiss and former senior partner William Lerach, who left the firm three years ago, if the case goes to court.
Lerach and Weiss allegedly are the individuals listed in the indictment as “Partner A” and “Partner B.” Lerach reportedly rejected the government’s most recent offer of a plea deal.
Other apparently unreturned donations included $5,000 in 2002 and $3,000 in 2001 from then-senior partner Steven Schulman, who was named in the government’s 2006 indictment, $2,000 from Susan Bershad in 2001 and $3,000 from Barbara Weiss in 2001.
Whether Spitzer returned all of the money he got from Milberg Weiss attorneys — and if not,why not — are important questions now, thanks to his stance as an ethics-in-government champion and because he and Milberg Weiss are heroes to legions of consumer activists and plaintiff lawyers who like to portray themselves as defenders of the “little guy.”
Milberg Weiss is the first law firm ever indicted as an organization under federal anti-racketeering laws. Media reports of a federal grand jury probe in Los Angeles of Milberg Weiss began in February 2002 and have been the subject of widespread reporting, commentary and speculation in legal circles and the mainstream media ever since.
Like Milberg Weiss, Spitzer unabashedly portrayed himself while he was attorney general as the champion of shareholders and others who were allegedly being bilked by corporate and Wall Street insiders.
Among his best-known targets as New York’s AG were former New York Stock Exchange Chairman Dick Grasso and American International Group Inc., then the nation’s largest insurance company.
Spitzer also brought an action against Phillip A. Anschutz, then chairman of Qwest Communications International Inc., accusing him of improperly profiting from certain initial public offerings.
Spitzer also brought an action against Philip F. Anschutz, who is owner of this newspaper, denied any wrongdoing and agreed to a $4.4 million settlement in which the proceeds went to six law schools and several nonprofit groups selected by Spitzer.
One of those groups, which received $100,000, was headed by Lorraine Cortez-Vazquez, described by the New York Sun as “a key Bronx Democratic machine loyalist.”
Cortez-Vazquez and her group “gave Mr. Spitzer some key assistance in his 1998 general election victory over incumbent Attorney General Dennis Vacco,” according to the Sun.
Mark Tapscott is editorial page editor of The Washington Examiner.
