Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver's firm gets cut of 9/11-suit payouts By JOSEPH GOLDSTEIN and SUSAN EDELMAN Last Updated: 6:14 AM, August 22, 2010 Posted: 1:46 AM, August 22, 2010
Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver has spun the 9/11 lawsuits into gold.
Ground Zero workers are on the hook to pay steep interest on money their lawyers borrowed from a group of investors that include Silver and his law partners, The Post has learned.
Silver's partners at the Weitz & Luxenberg law firm are top board members of a business that quietly loaned money at 18 percent a year to the law firm representing some 9,800 Ground Zero workers with toxic-illness suits against the city.
Silver personally invested an undisclosed sum -- but at least $50,000 -- in Counsel Financial Services, a Buffalo-based attorney-funding company that gives four-year loans and lines of credit up to $10 million to law firms with cases expected to hit the jackpot.
Sources told The Post that Counsel Financial loaned money to Paul Napoli and Marc Bern, lead attorneys suing the city on behalf of cops, firefighters, hardhats and other workers and volunteers who blame illnesses on the toxic World Trade Center rubble.
Silver's office has previously described him as a "passive investor" in Counsel Financial.
"He doesn't know where the money goes," Silver spokeswoman Sisa Moyo said when asked to comment on Counsel Financial's connection to the law firm battling New York City in the 9/11 cases.
Silver's Assembly district covers much of lower Manhattan, including Ground Zero, and the speaker is arguably the most powerful Democrat in the state.
A source familiar with the 9/11 litigation said Worby Groner Edelman & Napoli Bern, the law partnership representing the 9/11 workers, "had to lay out $20 million to $30 million" to fight the cases for six years against City Hall, which at first refused to pay a dime to ailing workers.
The firm "borrowed most of it," the source said, adding that the lawyers would have to repay the loans themselves if they lost the cases. "They took the risk."
Napoli said his firm took out various loans "at the best rates we could find," but would not answer further questions.
But now, lawyers are trying to pass on the interest costs to their 9/11 clients. Manhattan federal Judge Alvin Hellerstein has called a hearing next week to investigate whether the lawyers have overcharged their clients.
This is what lawyers do!!!!!!!!! I'm not a fan of Shelly, but did he break any legal or ethical laws?
The more prominent question is.......who excepted and signed off on the loan at an 18% interest rate? Because these people were sueing the 'city'....that means the payout INCLUDING interest will be made by the taxpayers. Unless I'm not reading this correct.
I'm only on my 1st cup of coffee!
When the INSANE are running the ASYLUM In individuals, insanity is rare; but in groups, parties, nations and epochs, it is the rule. -- Friedrich Nietzsche
“How fortunate for those in power that people never think.” Adolph Hitler
This is exactly why term limits are needed, end the reign of politicians pandering to special interest groups and large company lobbyists to get money for their re-election campaigns and force them to due our bidding.
Term limits sound good in theory. But it is actually saying that the electorate is too dumb to vote them out! The problem isn't the politicians, so to say.....it's the electorate who keeps voting the clowns in!!!!
It's the electorate that needs to smarten up and not be dumbed down!! People complain continually, almost like they are victimized andhelpless to their government. They piss and moan and cry like they are held hostage! Well stop bit*hing and do something about it....vote the ones that are not doing a good job out. Support the ones that are. 'Don't throw the baby out with the dirty bath water'
(and something has to be done about the 'special interest groups'.....they are killing us)
Hold their feet to the fire even AFTER November!! IMHO
When the INSANE are running the ASYLUM In individuals, insanity is rare; but in groups, parties, nations and epochs, it is the rule. -- Friedrich Nietzsche
“How fortunate for those in power that people never think.” Adolph Hitler
If term limits were put in a referendum on the November ballot it would pass by a substantial margin and that's exactly why the politicians will try to block that from happening.
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