Marc Dreier was scheduled to be released from FCI Sandstone on June 30,2025 but was released early when President Joe Biden commuted the sentences of almost 1,500 Federal prisoners on Thursday, December 12,2024.
71 Facts About Marc Dreier
1.
2.
Marc Dreier is the sole equity partner of the dissolved law firm Dreier, LLP.
3.
Marc Dreier was granted clemency by Joe Biden on 12 December 2024.
4.
Marc Dreier grew up on the south shore of Long Island in an affluent area known as the Five Towns.
5.
Marc Dreier's father, Sidney Dreier was a war refugee from Poland, owned a chain of movie theaters.
6.
Marc Dreier's mother, Mildred Dreier, was originally from Brooklyn where she was born to Lithuanian and Russian Jewish immigrant parents.
7.
Marc Dreier presided over the Lawrence High School student council, and graduated "most likely to succeed".
8.
Marc Dreier graduated from Yale University in 1972 with a Bachelor of Arts and earned a Juris Doctor from Harvard Law School in 1975.
9.
Dreier would become co-head of litigation in New York, but when Dreier left Fulbright in March 1995, there were only ten New York litigators.
10.
Marc Dreier ran the new firm's already leased Park Avenue office.
11.
Marc Dreier favored plaintiff class-action lawsuits, which brought in large revenue.
12.
Federman had problems with Marc Dreier's spending, managerial style, and secrecy, which culminated in a lawsuit.
13.
Marc Dreier, pushing to impress, acquired expensive trappings, buying a house in Westhampton.
14.
Marc Dreier bought first a place in Quogue, then the house next door.
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Marc Dreier purchased the $18 million 121-foot yacht Seascape, which included a crew of 10 and a Jacuzzi, and docked it in New York City and St Martin.
16.
Marc Dreier owned a waterfront home in the Hamptons, a Manhattan triplex, and a penthouse on Ocean Avenue in Santa Monica, California, which he leased out.
17.
Marc Dreier drove a Mercedes 500 in New York and an Aston Martin in California.
18.
Marc Dreier was a member of the Harmonie Club and maintained a high profile at charity events.
19.
In 2006, Marc Dreier founded his own firm with offices in five cities, promising lavish compensation.
20.
Marc Dreier operated like a corporation and not like a partnership.
21.
Marc Dreier was the sole equity partner owner, controlled all of the firm's finances, and handled all administrative functions.
22.
Marc Dreier convinced lawyers that such an arrangement was best by emphasizing that it would allow them to concentrate on law while he worried about running the firm.
23.
Marc Dreier hired lawyers on three-year contracts, fixing their salaries and paying bonuses based on the fees each lawyer brought in.
24.
In 2007, Marc Dreier expanded to Los Angeles and brought in Hollywood superstar lawyer Stanton "Larry" Stein, whose clients included Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen and Hilary Duff.
25.
Traub became a Marc Dreier partner, earning in the range of $1 million or more, and was co-chair, with Norman Kinel, of the bankruptcy practice.
26.
From 1998 to 2006, Marc Dreier handled much litigation for Sheldon Solow, a billionaire real estate dealmaker.
27.
Marc Dreier filed suits in state courts in Manhattan and Suffolk County, in federal court in both the Eastern and Southern Districts of New York, in bankruptcy court in Florida, and in several corresponding appellate courts.
28.
In November 2008, Marc Dreier claimed that Solow was looking to raise $500 million by selling short-term, high-interest notes, which were supported by an audit report that Marc Dreier had forged.
29.
In October 2008, Marc Dreier sent a Connecticut hedge fund's managing director documents that he said were Solow's audited financial statements, and the fund bought a forged $25 million note for $13.5 million.
30.
Marc Dreier sent a New York hedge fund the same documents he'd given the Connecticut fund, but portfolio managers wanted more information.
31.
Marc Dreier forwarded four e-mails that purported to be from other funds that had purchased Solow notes, as well as a Marc Dreier LLP opinion letter vouching for the notes.
32.
Solow's attorneys subsequently contacted federal authorities, that Marc Dreier might be engaged in financial fraud.
33.
In March 2008, Dreier sued client Judith Regan, claiming she owed the firm fees in connection with her $100 million defamation and breach of contract suit against her former employer, News Corp.
34.
On July 13,2009, Marc Dreier was sentenced to 20 years and ordered to begin his term immediately.
35.
From 2004 to December 2008, Marc Dreier "sold to funds and others approximately $700 million worth of Fake Developer Notes and Fake Pension Plan Notes".
36.
The eight-count indictment states his deception began in 2004, that Marc Dreier gave the purchasers of his notes false financial statements, arranged meetings for investors with people who impersonated officials from purported issuers of the notes, sold fake promissory notes purportedly issued by a Canadian pension plan, and embezzled more than $400 million from his client escrow account.
37.
Marc Dreier was released on bail, only to be arrested again by US authorities upon returning to New York.
38.
Marc Dreier had been initially released on bail on February 13,2009.
39.
On February 5,2009 US District Judge Jed Rakoff in Manhattan had written in a brief that a total of 10 conditions set for the release Marc Dreier "will be sufficient to reasonably assure the defendant's appearance in court as required".
40.
Marc Dreier issued a formal bail order on February 9,2009, that Dreier be freed on $10 million bond, under 24-hour house arrest with armed guards and electronic monitoring.
41.
The bail package proposed by Marc Dreier's lawyers "goes far to minimize this risk".
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The bond would be co-signed by his son and mother, holding them responsible if Marc Dreier were to flee.
43.
Marc Dreier ordered that all means of communication, other than a land-line telephone needed for electronic monitoring, be removed from Dreier's apartment and that no visitors would be allowed without approval from the government.
44.
Marc Dreier would have to submit to electronic monitoring and see a psychiatrist twice a week.
45.
Marc Dreier had asked to be freed on a $10 million bond and be subject to electronic monitoring.
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Marc Dreier said his mother and his 19-year-old son, Spencer, would co-sign the bond.
47.
Marc Dreier was born in Belgrade, educated at Columbia University and Harvard Business School, and joined Morgan Stanley in 1987.
48.
Marc Dreier left there after five years for a succession of smaller, obscure firms, then voluntarily gave up his broker's license in 2002.
49.
Marc Dreier refused to cooperate with investigators and eventually paid over $350,000 penalties and interest to settle the matter, while admitting no wrongdoing.
50.
Marc Dreier had known Dreier for at least a decade by 2008.
51.
On December 4,2008, while Marc Dreier was in a Canadian jail attempting to move cash from the law firm's accounts, Kovachev appeared at the law firm to pick up three paintings.
52.
Marc Dreier was made to forfeit his services payment from Dreier for the caper: $215,000.
53.
Kovachev was paid $115,000 from the Marc Dreier firm's operating account, and $100,000 from its attorney trust account.
54.
Marc Dreier agreed to forfeit the compensation of $100,000 from Dreier in November 2008 for impersonating both a person at a Canadian pension plan, and, a few days later, a representative of an Icelandic hedge fund by telephone, to sell about $44.7 million in fictitious promissory notes.
55.
Between 1999 and 2008, he and Marc Dreier managed an investment fund together.
56.
Marc Dreier closed at least three sales, convincing purchasers the notes were genuine.
57.
Marc Dreier distributed fake financial statements and audit opinion letters of a reputable accounting firm and recruited assistance to represent legitimate companies involved in the transactions, including false e-mail addresses and telephone numbers.
58.
Marc Dreier directed two purchasers of bogus notes to wire payment to his law firm's escrow account.
59.
Marc Dreier was offering fictitious promissory notes in the name of former client Solow Realty, a New York real estate development company.
60.
Since at least October 2008, Marc Dreier approached at least three different investment funds with an offer to sell at deep discount various short-term unsecured promissory notes, ostensibly issued by Solow.
61.
Each offer was accompanied by documents that Marc Dreier later admitted were fabricated.
62.
Marc Dreier offered the notes for sale even though he knew Solow did not issue them, had not authorized Marc Dreier to market them, and knew nothing of their existence.
63.
Marc Dreier gave the hedge funds fabricated documents including a "form" note and related agreements, "audited financial statements", and purported audit letters, which bore the forged signature of Solow's auditor, but which were printed on purported stationery of Solow's auditing firm.
64.
Marc Dreier never told the representatives from the hedge funds that the entire marketing and sales plan was fictitious.
65.
Marc Dreier stated that he was aware since he took his position in August 2005 of the disbursement of $30 to $40 million from Dreier accounts to purchase works of art.
66.
Marc Dreier LLP maintained eight escrow accounts where client funds were commingled and eight other accounts for individual clients.
67.
Marc Dreier had remained counsel for the official committee of unsecured creditors in connection with 360's Chapter 11 bankruptcy and Kinel asked for the money to distribute to unsecured creditors, but only $19 million remained in the accounts.
68.
On both days, Marc Dreier, who was incarcerated in Canada on a charge of impersonation related to his dealings with the hedge funds, asked Provenzano to transfer $8 million and then $10 million from the escrow accounts into Marc Dreier's own accounts, but Provenzano refused.
69.
Marc Dreier held stock certificates in an office safe, and stakes in a company called People Capital, as well as a startup bio-diesel firm in Argentina.
70.
Marc Dreier owed more than $40-million to various creditors, including many of the firm's own lawyers.
71.
Marc Dreier noted that he had multiple stressors simultaneously that kept up his focus: the scam, a legitimate law business, and his work as a practicing attorney.