With just one full week remaining before New York prosecutors rest their case in the Dewey & LeBoeuf criminal trial, the state’s final cooperating witness faced questioning yesterday from a defense lawyer representing the now-defunct firm’s ex-CFO, Joel Sanders, the American Lawyer reported today. In her third day on the stand, former Dewey & LeBoeuf director of revenue support Dianne Cascino, looking at times serious and on the verge of tears, told jurors of false book entries made to financial records. Andrew Frisch, an attorney for Sanders with his own New York boutique, highlighted how Cascino changed her tune in her responses to prosecutors before and after she signed a plea agreement in exchange for leniency, and attempted to put some distance between his client and the witness's damaging testimony. Cascino, who technically reported to Sanders, offered some of the most intensive and evidence-heavy testimony of the past three months. Cascino testified last week that she reversed book entries for millions of dollars of client disbursements that had been written off, keeping them on Dewey's books in order to inflate the firm's accounts receivable. Cascino earlier testified that the practice of reversing write-offs began in January 2009 at Canellas' behest.
