Ponzi schemer Scott Rothstein gets 50-year sentence (Florida)

[seafan]

Source: Miami Herald

Scott Rothstein, South Florida Ponzi schemer extraordinaire, received a 50-year prison sentence Wednesday after a hearing in federal court in Fort Lauderdale.
U.S. District Judge James Cohn, an Alabama native appointed by President George W. Bush, gave the disbarred lawyer more than what prosecutors requested for his crime as the mastermind of South Florida's biggest financial fraud.

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Rothstein, convicted of running a $1.2 billion investment scam, had said he deserved no more than 30 years because he pleaded guilty, spilled his guts to the feds and starred in an FBI sting that took down a reputed Italian Mafia figure.
In his sentencing, Judge Cohn called Rothstein's investment scam a `tsunami'' that he created through his law firm, his political connections, his charities and ultimately, by forging the signatures of judges in a legal case between auto magnate Ed Morse and an interior decorator.

Rothstein ``created an appearance of legitimacy,'' Cohn said. ``We all know it was all a facade, a fraud.''
Cohn was particularly disturbed by Rothstein's forging of documents in the Morse case, which cost the tycoon $57 million, stolen by Rothstein.
``He forged these court orders to perpetuate the Ponzi scheme. There can be no conduct more reviled than a lawyer perpetrating a fraud on the court.''

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Rothstein will go down in South Florida history as a one-man wrecking ball who destroyed his own 70-attorney law firm, Rothstein Rosenfeldt Adler, and used it to prop himself up as a flashy player among wealthy investors, society types, trendy entrepreneurs and prominent politicians -- including Gov. Charlie Crist.







Read more: http://www.miamiherald.com/2010/06/09/1671305/ponzi-schemer-scott-rothstein.html

[pattmarty]

1. Only 50 yrs? Like to see the sentence if he had 2 oz of weed.