Hunton And Williams Recent Illegality

The reputed Ponzi-type scheme offered participants returns of 60 percent on their
investments in a business that was to purchase premium Scotch whiskies and other quality liquors for resale in Asia. But the deal went bust last summer, three years after it started, when investors said they discovered that early returns did not reflect business profits but had been paid out of a growing pool of investments.

One striking element of the investment plan is that some of those who said they lost money were lawyers, who are typically paid to sniff out a bad deal. In addition, the plan was apparently operated in large part out of the New York offices of The Hunton and WIlliams law firm, giving it the patina of respectability, recently filed lawsuits have contended.

The lawyer at the heart of the reputed scheme was Scott J. McKay Wolas, who until last summer was a partner and leading litigator in the New York City office of Hunton & Williams, a large law firm based in Richmond. He has family ties to the liquor business ...more of the story here

HUNTON & WILLIAMS LAW FIRM INVOLIVED IN BANK SCAM THAT MAY HIT $323 MILLION - THE FBI SAYS - Miami, FL: (Oct-08-07) - The Office of Comptroller of the Currency (OCC), which regulates all national banks, brought charges against Carlos Loumiet, a Hunton & Williams partner, alleging that he helped the now-defunct Hamilton Bank hide losses from $20 million in Russian loans.

The suit claimed that Loumiet engaged in unsafe or unsound practices, which cost three Hamilton Bank members their freedom and nearly $1 million in fines for Hunton & Williams, the area's most prominent law firm.

The suit stated that owing to the mismanagement, the OCC closed Hamilton Bank in 2002. The failure cost the federal insurance fund $127 million and public shareholders lost their entire investment.

The CEO of the bank, Eduardo Masferrer, was convicted of 16 fraud charges and sentenced to 30 years in prison after two other officers, President Juan Carlos Bernace and John Jacobs, pleaded out and testified against him. Some of Virginia's and the nation's most reputable banks were duped out of as much as $323 million - money that supposedly was funding for a super-secret project by the Philip Morris Co. to test cigarette ``alternatives'' of the future, the FBI has charged in an extraordinary affidavit.

The FBI's 15-page account describes phone conferences involving the impersonation of a Philip Morris attorney, faxed letters on bogus Philip Morris corporate stationery, and the fabrication of a multinational cigarette testing program code-named ``Project Star.''

The arrest of two people occurred after a Nations Bank official concluded Saturday that
something was amiss. On Tuesday, FBI agents arrested on bank fraud charges Edward J. Reiners, 51, of Somers, N.Y., a former Philip Morris employee, and Judy Rose Bachiman, 38, of Cliffside Park, N.J.

After appearing Tuesday before a federal judge in New York, Reiners remained in custody and Bachiman was released on a $40,000 bond. If convicted, they each face up to 30 years in prison and a $1 million fine.

Reiners' and Bachiman's alleged scam began in 1993. The two banks and other financial institutions extended about $323 million in loans to Reiners' ... more of the story here

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