It has been five years and one mistrial in the making, but a jury has come to a decision about the collapse of Dewey & LeBoeuf, and it was a split verdict, The New York Times reported today. Joel Sanders, the law firm’s former chief financial officer, was convicted on three criminal counts arising from what prosecutors said was a scheme to hide the firm’s failing finances from its backers. He could be sentenced to up to four years in prison. Stephen DiCarmine, the former executive director, was acquitted of the same charges. Dewey & LeBoeuf, created from the merger of two-storied law firms, once employed more than 1,300 lawyers, but it ran into trouble during the financial crisis. Manhattan prosecutors said that DiCarmine and Sanders had plotted to manipulate the firm’s financial records to defraud banks and insurance companies that had invested in a bond offering. The decision gives Cyrus R. Vance Jr., the Manhattan district attorney, some vindication: His office had plowed resources into the case, but the first proceeding was declared a mistrial.
