Ex-Dewey & LeBoeuf CFO Joel Sanders is on trial along with ex-Chairman Steven Davis and former executive director Stephen DiCarmineis for cooking the books at their law firm that went bankrupt in 2012.
Opening statements in the case were made yesterday but today, Mr. Sanders's attorney Andrew Frisch had his turn and he can explain the whole thing.
The Wall Street Journal reports that Frisch says that his client is just a "ordinary guy" that was trying to "do his job"; a man who went to "went to the banks when the firm ran into financial trouble."
Furthermore, the emails that prosecutors are trying to make sound incriminating are not to be taken seriously:
Mr. Frisch highlighted some of the emails that are expected to serve as the prosecution’s key evidence, saying the term “fake income” that Mr. Sanders used in one email is a legitimate accounting term and that his reference to finding “another clueless auditor” was intended as sarcasm.“Be cynical when you hear their interpretation of the emails,” Mr. Frisch told jurors, referring to prosecutors.
“Can you find another clueless auditor for next year?” one of the defendants, former chief financial officer Joel Sanders, allegedly wrote in one email included in the 100-count indictment. The recipient responds: “That’s the plan. Worked perfect this year.”
Mr. Sanders, [Frisch] argued, cared about keeping the firm alive, sending an email as the firm’s finances sagged saying, “We’ll go bankrupt. This is a disaster. The firm’s fate is in our hands. And 3,000 families are eating off a paycheck for Dewey & LeBoeuf. We can’t let this happen.”