Jury Will Decide If Shkreli Lawyer Is 'Co-Conspirator' or Victim
Will jurors believe that former Katten Muchin Rosenman partner Evan Greebel "crossed the line from legal adviser to criminal co-conspirator"?
December 21, 2017 at 02:00 PM
5 minute read
Evan Greebel. Courtesy photo.
In closing arguments in the trial against former Katten Muchin Rosenman partner Evan Greebel, a federal prosecutor said jurors had “seen overwhelming evidence” showing Greebel conspired with former pharmaceutical executive Martin Shkreli, arguing Shkreli was Greebel's “meal ticket” for money and advancement in his law firm.
The defense, meanwhile, pointed to repeated holes in testimony in the past two months, and said the prosecution was promoting a “dangerous concept” that Greebel was “guilty by representation.”
After about two months of trial, closing arguments began Wednesday in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York federal court and were expected to last well into Thursday. In the trial before U.S. District Judge Kiyo Matsumoto, each side planned several hours of closings, keeping jurors in the courtroom just days before the holidays.
Prosecutors claim that Shkreli, former CEO of Retrophin, and Greebel, former outside counsel to the company, schemed to defraud Retrophin by using its assets to pay off Shkreli's debts, including obligations he owed to investors in his former hedge funds, through sham settlement and consulting agreements. The government also argues Greebel agreed to help Shkreli and others illegally control the trading and price of Retrophin stock.
Greebel was advising Retrophin when Shkreli was CEO until 2014. After being arrested in late 2015, Greebel and Shkreli were charged together in two counts: conspiracy to commit wire fraud related to Retrophin and conspiracy to commit securities fraud related to Retrophin shares. At the time of the alleged fraud, Greebel was a partner at Katten. After he was arrested, he resigned from Kaye Scholer.
Shkreli, in a separate trial, was convicted on Aug. 4 of three counts, including securities fraud conspiracy, one of the counts facing Greebel.
Dueling Narratives
In her final plea to the jury, Assistant U.S. Attorney Alixandra Smith again pored over dozens of documents presented during the trial, including emails between Greebel and Shkreli, capitalization tables, settlement agreements and share transfer memos to outline her argument that Greebel and Shkreli worked together to take assets from Retrophin to pay back angry investors.
“The defendant crossed the line from legal adviser to criminal co-conspirator,” Smith said.
“Why did he do it?” Smith said. “For the oldest reason in the book. For money.”
While Greebel was initially paid about $300,000 at Katten, all of his work for Retrophin and Shkreli led his pay to triple to about $900,000, Smith said.
After the pay hike, Greebel became the No. 1 income partner at Katten in the entire country, Smith said, adding Greebel had an “incentive that Retrophin stay a viable client and continued to pay.”
“Martin Shkreli is his meal ticket. Martin Shkreli is his connection,” said Smith, who showed jurors emails in which she said Greebel was “hounding Shkreli to get bills paid.”
After a parade of witnesses, including investors and Retrophin personnel, Smith nodded to a defense raised by Greebel's attorneys and acknowledged some didn't have a lot of direct contact with Greebel. “That was intentional,” she said, arguing Greebel had to operate behind the scenes to make the alleged fraud look legitimate and legal.
Meanwhile, Greebel's defense attorneys continued to portray him as a victim of Shkreli—and of prosecutorial overreach.
Starting closing arguments for the defense, Joshua Dubin, who has been co-counsel with Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher and is most known for his trial consulting work, said it was “absurd” to say Shkreli was Greebel's meal ticket.
Dubin added that it's illogical for an attorney like Greebel to risk it all “for a person he barely knew” and a long-shot company that was a “lottery ticket at best” and couldn't keep up with legal bills.
Greebel worked long hours at Katten and left his work life at work and his personal life at home, Dubin said. “He didn't associate with Martin Shkreli. What he did was represent him. So that's what it is—guilty by representation,” Dubin said. “This concept of guilty by representation is so dangerous.”
Why did the trial feature so much evidence of Shkreli's misdeeds, Dubin asked jurors. “We feel that it's their hope you will find him guilty by association,” Dubin said. “They mixed them up so many times, I lost count.”
While the prosecution's testimony proved Shkreli was brilliant and a visionary, Dubin said, he was also “the king of deception” who lied to Greebel repeatedly. Shkreli fooled many people, including successful businessman and investors, Dubin said.
Dubin repeatedly pointed out apparent problems in witness testimony, noting “not a single witness” testified of hearing or seeing Greebel do something wrong. Dubin also latched onto inconsistencies in witness testimony between Greebel's trial and Shkreli's, which was referred to as a “prior proceeding” before the present jury. Jurors had a responsibility to judge witnesses' credibility, Dubin said.
“There is a mountain of reasonable doubt to say the least,” he told the jury.
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