Marc Drier, “The Houdini of Impersonation”
posted by ModeratorFiled under: Fraud and Deception
The Impersonator
by Robert Kolker
New York Magazine
April 3, 2009
The whole operation was audacious to the point of sheer recklessness””from the start, he was just one due-diligence phone call from being found out””yet the very boldness of his plan was central to its success. Who would believe that such a respected and apparently successful attorney would knowingly peddle hundreds of millions of dollars worth of nothing?
Like Bernie Madoff, Marc Dreier bilked unsuspecting investors out of many millions of dollars. But Dreier did it with flair.
There was a time when Marc Dreier thought he could talk his way out of anything. But by last fall, even he was scrambling. Whenever the stylish, hyperaggressive 58-year-old white-collar litigator turned around, clients and colleagues at Dreier LLP, the marquee Park Avenue firm he”™d built from almost nothing to 250 lawyers in just five years, were asking questions””about back rent, unpaid loans, depleted client escrow funds, documents of uncertain provenance. What Dreier needed to make these questions go away, he knew, was money. About $40 million, for starters. (more…)