An Upper Marlboro lawyer is accused of orchestrating a money-laundering scheme to cover up his clients’ drug profits. Federal prosecutors allege that Brian W. Young, 39, accepted tens of thousands of dollars from clients’ marijuana sales and invested their cash in real estate to hide the funds. He also helped make a fraudulent will to protect drug assets and paid other attorneys to defend clients, using drug-trafficking funds that had been deposited into an escrow account for his own law firm, according to an indictment.
The indictment in federal court in Alexandria was unsealed after his arrest Wednesday. Young is charged with money laundering and conspiracy to commit money laundering.
Young is in custody. His attorney didn’t return a call Thursday for comment. One phone number listed for Young’s law firm, O’Brien, Young and Knowles, was disconnected and no one answered at another number.
In 2005, Young recommended an accountant for convicted drug dealer William H. Cornman who wouldn’t question Cornman’s business records and would help him conceal his drug profits on tax returns, according to the indictment.
Court documents say Young later helped Cornman buy a home in Clinton, Md., that was in the middle of foreclosure proceedings, in order to conceal Cornman’s money made from drug trafficking.
In September 2008, Young and Cornman allegedly conspired to create a fake will after Cornman’s brother, Timmy, died. They did so “in order to protect Cornman’s drug assets, including the family residence, from a claim by Cornman’s estranged mother,” the indictment says. Young allegedly forged Timmy Cornman’s signature on a will that was purportedly created in October 2006.
Then, when federal drug charges were filed against William Cornman and Joseph Tak in November 2008, Young allegedly paid for their defense using the pair’s drug proceeds, concealing the ownership of the funds to protect them from government seizure.
The indictment says Young told another drug dealer, Nicholas Poliansky, to collect outstanding debts owed to Cornman. When Young received the money, he deposited it his law firm’s escrow account. He then wrote checks — in amounts as high as $20,000 — to Cornman’s and Tak’s attorneys from the escrow account, according to the indictment.
Court records say Young also transferred $10,000 to one of his law partners to conceal the money, and “discussed burying the cash underground.”
Cornman, Tak and Poliansky are all serving federal prison sentences on drug charges. They were not charged in the money-laundering scheme.
