Sorkin Uses Likability, Savvy to Protect a Despised Client

Ira Lee Sorkin has the challenging task of representing one of the most hated men in America: Bernard L. Madoff, who is accused of ripping off hundreds of celebrities, nonprofit organizations and ordinary investors through a $50 billion Ponzi scheme.

One of Mr. Sorkin’s colleagues had a succinct response when asked how he would handle the case of Mr. Madoff, 70, who was turned in by his sons and allegedly admitted his crime to FBI agents.

“I’d pray,” he said.

But if Mr. Sorkin is concerned about the task he faces, he did not show any trace in a more than one-hour interview last week.

Indeed, Mr. Sorkin, the 65-year-old former head of the New York office of the Securities and Exchange Commission known as Ike, spoke in a relaxed, measured manner about a wide range of topics.

“A lawyer’s first role is to protect the client,” Mr. Sorkin said, but “sometimes there is a perception issue that may be a part of protecting your client’s rights.”

Legal observers agree that, when all is said and done, Mr. Sorkin eventually will have to accept a deal that includes substantial jail time for Mr. Madoff. For the moment, however, they give him credit for keeping his client out of jail since his Dec. 11 arrest.

A keen observer of the press and public opinion, Mr. Sorkin said he actually proposed stricter bail conditions than he had initially negotiated with the government.

According to Mr. Sorkin, prosecutors had agreed to release Mr. Madoff on a $10 million bond secured by his East 64th Street apartment, which is in the name of his wife, Ruth. The original agreement permitted Mr. Madoff to travel within three federal court districts in the metropolitan area.

But with the rising public outcry against Mr. Madoff’s continued freedom, Mr. Sorkin said he agreed to have his client confined to his home and to foot the bill for private security guards to enforce the arrangement.

Mr. Sorkin said he agreed to the strict bail conditions “in anticipation” that the government, in response to the mounting public pressure, would seek to revoke bail.

Mr. Sorkin said he believed it was in Mr. Madoff’s “best interests” to have strict confinement conditions in place should the government pursue that course.

The government did move to revoke bail after it discovered that Ruth Madoff had mailed $1 million in watches and jewelry on Christmas Eve to family members and friends in violation of an SEC freeze on his assets.

Mr. Sorkin told the court the gifts were “a few sentimental personal items” and said that the decision to mail them had been an honest mistake. In any case, he said in the interview that prosecutors were using the episode as an “excuse” to seek the jailing of his increasingly unpopular client.

But by then, the strict conditions had been in place since Dec. 19 – five days before prosecutors charged that Ms. Madoff had violated the freeze order – and the government could not convince the court that the status quo should be changed. Southern District Magistrate Judge Ronald Ellis and then-District Court Judge Lawrence M. McKenna kept the bail arrangement in place with several relatively minor additions (NYLJ, Jan. 15).

It was “no mean feat” for Mr. Sorkin, who is representing “a guy who has apparently confessed to a $50 billion fraud, ostensibly violated a court order, and may have assets abroad,” said one white-collar criminal defense attorney in Manhattan.

Mr. Sorkin “deserves a pat on the back for keeping Mr. Madoff out of jail,” said another.

Hate E-Mails

The representation of Mr. Madoff has brought other trials with it, Mr. Sorkin said. He has received one death threat that warranted reporting to the FBI, and about a dozen anti-Semitic e-mails.

The widespread publicity even ensnared Mr. Sorkin at one point.

His name was on a list of more than 13,000 Madoff client accounts in a filing made in the bankruptcy of Bernard L. Madoff Securities, which led to articles questioning whether he had an ethical conflict.

Mr. Sorkin swatted away that notion, saying the account referred to in the bankruptcy filing was a retirement account belonging to his father and then his mother after his father died in 2001. As his mother’s health declined, he said he received her mail for several years before her death in 2007, when the account was closed out.

“There is no conflict,” Mr. Sorkin said, “because I was never a client, customer or had any beneficial interest in an account at the Madoff firm.”

Mr. Sorkin also reported that, despite widespread concern in Jewish circles that Mr. Madoff has brought shame on all Jews, he has received no criticism from members of his temple or from board members of the American Friends of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, where he is chairman.

Known Madoff Since 1980s

Mr. Sorkin has known Mr. Madoff since the 1980s, when a former partner, Howard Squadron, of Squadron Ellenoff Plesent & Sheinfeld, introduced the two. Mr. Sorkin declined to comment on his retainer from Mr. Madoff or other aspects of his work for him.

Representing Bernard Madoff are Dickstein Shapiro attorneys, from left, Daniel J. Horowitz, Nicole P. De Bello, Ira Lee Sorkin and Mauro M. Wolfe.

To assist him on the Madoff matter, Mr. Sorkin has enlisted three members of the 15-lawyer securities enforcement and white-collar defense group of Dickstein Shapiro, which he co-heads.

The team includes partners Daniel J. Horowitz, a former assistant district attorney in Manhattan, and Mauro M. Wolfe, who was an assistant U.S. attorney in New Jersey and previously worked for the SEC in Philadelphia. Associate Nicole P. De Bello rounds out the group.

Among the matters Mr. Sorkin is handling for Mr. Madoff is the Southern District criminal case and a civil action filed by the SEC. The lawyers also are responsible for representing Mr. Madoff’s interests in connection with the bankruptcy of his securities firm.

The next court date in Mr. Madoff’s case is March 13 when the government faces a deadline for filing an indictment against him. Prosecutors have twice asked for a 30-day extension of the deadline, citing the need for “additional discussions regarding a possible disposition.”

Mr. Sorkin also represents Ruth Madoff. Massachusetts securities regulators reported last week that in the days before the scandal broke, Ms. Madoff had withdrawn $15.5 million from an account she had in a brokerage firm in which Mr. Madoff holds a minority stake, including $10 million the day before her husband was arrested.

Mr. Sorkin had no comment on the Massachusetts report.