A federal judge in Los Angeles yesterday sentenced Mel Weiss to 30 months in prison and ordered him to pay nearly $10 million in restitution and fines. The sentence was only three months short of the maximum allowable in a case that has previously seen guilty pleas by three of Weiss’ former senior partners at the Milberg Weiss law firm. The four confessed to paying more than $11.7 million in bribes to lead plaintiffs in at least 150 class-action lawsuits that generated an estimated $250 million in tainted legal fees, beginning in 1979, according to federal prosecutors. Earlier this year, former Weiss partner William Lerach was sentenced to two years in federal prison and two years of probation, plus fines and restitution totaling almost $8 million. Former senior partners David Bershad and Steven Schulman also pleaded guilty but have not yet been sentenced, as they continue to cooperate with prosecutors in the Justice Department investigation that began in 2000.

And so ends the once-celebrated legal career of the middle-class kid from the Bronx who became the driving force behind a tidal wave of class-action securities litigation in the 1980s and 1990s that swept through boardrooms across America. Along the way, Weiss, Lerach, Bershad and Schulman perfected winning “the race to the courthouse” to be named counsel by the lead plaintiff, thus assuring them a lion’s share of legal fees. They got so good at it that legions of corporate executives agreed to out-of-court settlements worth billions to avoid losing much more in courtroom showdowns. Congress even passed a law in 1995 specifically aimed at slowing Weiss, Lerach and company down, but they kept right on going, perpetuating a criminal conspiracy to defraud the courts, defendants and shareholders.

Earlier this year at the Lerach sentencing, U.S. District Judge John Walter said “this whole conspiracy corrupted the law firm, and it corrupted it in the most evil way.” Lerach has said “everybody was paying plaintiffs.” Sooner or later, Congress is going to have to hold hearings to determine how deep the corruption goes in the plaintiffs’ bar. The problem here is that over the years, House Judiciary Committee Chairman Rep. John Conyers Jr., D-Mich., and many other prominent Democrats in Congress received millions of dollars in political contributions from Weiss, Lerach and others at the Milberg Weiss firm. That’s why hearings should be held soon, if only to prove the Democratic friends of Weiss and Lerach who now control Congress will no longer look the other way.