Rothstein Faces Life In Prison, If Charged and Convicted
BY BUDDY NEVINS
Disgraced lawyer Scott Rothstein is talking to the feds.
That’s no surprise. It’s self preservation.
He’s facing life in prison.
Rothstein hasn’t been charged with anything.
But published reports accuse him of stealing hundreds of millions. The feds are sniffing around.
So I took a look at the sentencing table for federal crimes today.
Rothstein is alleged to have taken part in a $500 million scam.
The guidelines call up to 360 months (30 years) to life if convicted. Per count.
Standing between Rothstein and prison is his defense attorney, Marc Nurik.
Nurik, 58, a Brooklyn kid. Rothstein born in the Bronx.
Nurik’s specialty white collar crime.
A graduate of Georgetown University Law School. A Nova adjunct professor in the 1980-90s.
At major firms like Ruden McClosky, Nurik defended high profile clients accused of money laundering and other assorted scams. But he’s never had a client as big as Rothstein.
Broward has long been the land where shady folks came to make a fast buck.
Meir Lansky, the mob financier, controlled Hallandale and ran casions openly in the 1940s and early 1950s. That’s because he had the Broward Sheriff in his pocket.
I did a series at the old Fort Lauderdale News about boiler rooms in east Fort Lauderdale which stole millions from gullible investors. There was so many boiler rooms that Fort Lauderdale was known by another name — Fort Frauderdale.
I remember the Alderdice brothers, who ran the International Gold Bullion Exchange’s $70 million scam on East Broward Boulevard. Hundred of their customers thought they were buying gold kept in a vault in Fort Lauderdale. Regulators later found the vault filled with wooden blocks painted gold.
The county was filled with drug runners in the 1970s and 1980s, offloading boats along the East Fort Lauderdale finger canals and dumping marijuana from planes in the then-uninhabited West Broward swamps. Millions of dollars in illegal drugs were seized so often that stories about them got buried in the back pages, if they made the paper at all.
Drug kingpins were shot down in the street. I covered one story where the victim was found shot at his front door with $40-50,000 in cash in his pockets.
Crime and rip offs are a constant in Broward.
Nobody has come close to what Rothstein is accused of doing.
Five hundred million. Now that’s major money. That’s Pentagon weapon’s program money.
When you mention a possible $500 million rip off, the feds start salivating.
With all the allegations swirling around, Nurik will have to use every skill he has ever learned to save the portly lawyer’s hide.
Nurik will have Rothstein cooperating, and still the saga is going to go on a long, long time.
Because this story won’t be over until the fat man sings and sings and sings and sings.
November 4th, 2009 at 9:26 pm
What happens to Rothstein’s trophy wife? She was on TV tonight hiding in a Burka as she got out of her car. I feel sorry for her because she obviously had nothing to do with this and obviously will have nothing to do with him in the future.
November 4th, 2009 at 11:41 pm
My friend Harry worked at the IGBE and he was none the wiser about the fake gold at the time.
November 5th, 2009 at 5:43 am
Maggot Mile was Oakland Park Blvd….not Commercial
FROM BUDDY: Thanks for your comment. You’ve got a good memory.
I agree that some labeled Oakland Park “Maggot Mile.” Others say it was Commercial.
In a story about fraud, The New York Times called a section of Boca Raton “Maggot Mile.”
Basically, there were so many boiler rooms and scams running that any part of northeast Broward and southern Palm Beach County could have been termed “Maggot Mile.”
However, I changed the wording of the article. I am now using another term for Fort Lauderdale at the time — Fort Frauderdale.”
November 5th, 2009 at 6:15 am
Does anybody know what happened to the Alderdices? For a time they were in the news as much as Rothstein is now.
FROM BUDDY:
James Alderdice got religion in prison. I don’t know what happened to him. Maybe somebody else does.
Bill Alderdice was stabbed to death by James Doyle, an inmate he met in the pen. Doyle was represented in his 1986 trial by Public Defender Alan Schreiber himself. Doyle was convicted.
November 5th, 2009 at 6:30 am
A little birdie told me that $500 million is WAY low on the amount of this scheme — try double that plus some more and you’re more on target. How anyone could trust this guy with a billion (1,000 million) or more dollars is beyond me.
November 5th, 2009 at 7:07 am
Why do you think he came back?
FROM BUDDY: Your guess is as good as mine.
November 5th, 2009 at 7:08 am
Check out today’s Wall Street Journal on the widely disparate sentences being doled out for white collar crimes. Supreme Court cases in 2005 and 2007 gave federal judges more latitude in sentencing guidelines. Defendants’ fates are now subject largely to the whims of individual judges.
FROM BUDDY: Thanks for tipping me off to the WSJ.Com article. Below is the portion that interested me.
“Since sentencing parameters were relaxed, early indications suggest that judges on balance are using their discretion to give longer white-collar sentences. Average prison sentences for fraud increased to about two years in the nine months ended in June 2009. That is six months longer than fraud sentences for the same period five years earlier, according to data from the U.S. Sentencing Commission, a federal agency.”
November 5th, 2009 at 9:26 am
Has anyone looked into SR’s dealings with Tom Wheeler, Crist’s boy at Lamberti’s office?
November 5th, 2009 at 10:44 am
What was he doing in Casablanca? I’m guessing there’s a hidden treasure there. Has anybody asked him?
November 5th, 2009 at 10:53 am
Most likely hiding from Bruce Edwards
November 5th, 2009 at 11:17 am
He was obviously in Casablanca in an attempt to buy letters of transit from Rick Blaine. Or maybe he wanted to buy Rick’s nightclub before Signor Ferrari buys it.
November 5th, 2009 at 1:53 pm
Buddy, Why do you think he even came back from Morraco? How strange, he had his get-a-way and then came back…
FROM BUDDY: You guess is as good as mine.
Scott has confidence in himself. Maybe he believes he can explain everything away.
March 10th, 2011 at 11:01 am
You feel SORRY for his gold digging wife?? To each his own, but I find it difficult to feel sorry for what bascially amounts to prostitution. WHether you get paid one time for one service or get paid continuously for countinuous service, its all exchange of money for sex and escorting.
Look at him. Look at her. Take money out of this picture, and the power that goes with it, the only time you would EVER see them together is her turning his drunken ass down at a singles bar. As far as Im concerned the tramp lived a great life for a few years, in all probability has a ton of HER HUSBANDS VICTIMS cash stashed away and will spend the rest of her life running away from people who want it.