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Former Milberg Weiss class-action securities lawyer William Lerach was sentenced Monday to two years in federal prison and two years of probation for conspiring to obstruct justice in a kickback scheme prosecutors called a “criminal enterprise” begun in 1979. The kickbacks went to a stable of lead plaintiffs who in return recommended Milberg Weiss as lead counsel. Lerach’s sentence is absurdly lenient, considering what he and his former law partners did to the nation’s legal system. Lerach claims kickbacks were commonplace among class-action litigators when he was practicing.” Everybody was paying plaintiffs,” he said in a letter inadvertently made public by his own attorneys last week. This should trigger a wider-ranging federal investigation of the plaintiffs bar, if indeed such a probe is not already being conducted. Senate and House Democrats, many of whom in years past received multiple campaign contributions from Lerach and others at Milberg Weiss, could demonstrate a laudable independence by opening a congressional inquiry.

http://www.examiner.com/a-1215313~Lerach_sentencing_shows_ne ed_for_congressional_probe.html

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