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Prominent Lawyer Defends Himself

Prominent Lawyer Defends Himself
Credit...The New York Times Archives
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March 24, 1992, Section B, Page 4Buy Reprints
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Harvey Myerson, a flamboyant trial lawyer known for his lavish style of living, with Rolls-Royces, foot-long Cuban cigars and raccoon coats, opened his own defense yesterday in Federal District Court in Brooklyn by denying charges that he stole more than $3.5 million from his clients and his firm. He said he was a victim of a setup.

At times cajoling the jury with whispers or pacing the courtroom, Mr. Myerson dismissed a 15-count indictment against him and shifted the blame to four former partners who are witnesses for the prosecution. Mr. Myerson's opening statement followed that of an assistant United States attorney, Sean O'Shea, who described Mr. Myerson's life as one of flagrant spending that included chartered flights to resorts, luxury hotels and an $86,000 Cartier diamond ring for a friend.

"Harvey Myerson made his law firm a personal candy store," Mr. O'Shea told the jury and Judge Edward R. Korman. "He turned the outward trappings of a Park Avenue law firm into a criminal enterprise to steal from his partners and his clients."

The courtroom, across the hall from the trial of John Gotti, was packed with prosecutors and lawyers on hand to see a lawyer defend himself. Mr. Myerson did not disappoint them. He admitted to having spent money and then sought to woo the jury.

"Harvey Myerson was too uppity," Mr. Myerson said. "It means being a flamboyant and big cigar-smoking Jewish lawyer who made it, and he flaunted it. I did get uppity, and that was one of my failures."

In 1985, Fortune magazine named him one of the top five trial lawyers in the United States. In December 1987, he established a firm on Park Avenue with Bowie Kuhn, the former Baseball Commissioner . And in less than two years, the prosecution asserted, Mr. Myerson defrauded the firm of more than $1 million and six corporate clients of more than $2 million. The clients were named as the Home Insurance Company, ICN Pharmaceuticals Inc., the Kelley Oil Companies, the New York State Urban Development Corporation, Shearson Lehman Hutton Inc. and the United Food and Commercial Workers' Union. The firm, Myerson & Kuhn, filed for bankruptcy in 1989.

The indictments accuse Mr. Myerson of causing the firm to pay for a wide range of his personal expenses and of inflating legal fees by charging clients for hours never worked. Mr. O'Shea defined the looting of the firm as a way of "financing a free-spending life style."

Among other client-financed spending sprees, Mr. O'Shea said, Mr. Myerson took a Concorde supersonic jet for a weekend at Claridge's in London with a friend and spent $30,000. At other times, the prosecutor said, Mr. Myerson billed a client for a vacation at a spa in Baden-Baden in Austria and then traveled to the Kentucky Derby with another friend and spent $20,000, which he billed to ICN and Kelley. The bills included $1,632 for sunglasses and $1,000 for Cuban cigars.

"He fabricated hours, hundreds of thousands of hours that hadn't been worked," Mr. O'Shea said.

Mr. Myerson argued that because he was earning $400 an hour for his services he had no need to steal additional money and that he had brought $23 million of business to the firm out of a total of $30 million. He accused his associates of stealing from the firm and the clients. With constant sarcastic references to "the poor young men" who were scared of him, Mr. Myerson accused the Government of wanting to "get that fat rich lawyer."

A bomb scare and the evacuation of the building interrupted his statement, but he was hardly fazed. He later continued for a few minutes accusing his associates of defrauding the firm. "It's not bill padding," he said. "It's bull padding."

A version of this article appears in print on  , Section B, Page 4 of the National edition with the headline: Prominent Lawyer Defends Himself. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe

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