U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan’s decision earlier this week was a major victory for the defendants in the KPMG tax shelter case because it at least gives the defendants the basis for obtaining the financial means for defending the case effectively. However, as this Lynnlee Browning/NY Times article points out, the deck is still stacked firmly in favor of the prosecution in such multiple-defendant, business fraud criminal cases. The conflicting interests of the multiple defendants are now rising to the surface of the case, as is the prosecution’s ability to cherry-pick certain defendants for attractive plea deals:
In pretrial hearings since their clients’ indictments last August and last October, defense lawyers have presented a unified front, filing joint motions and refraining from public squabbling. Lawyers for all of the defendants, countering prosecutors’ assertions of criminal intent, are expected to argue that their clients thought at the time that what they did was aggressive but legal.
But increasingly, defense lawyers speak of different camps forming over recent weeks, with lawyers for the junior defendants indicating that they will focus on proving that their clients took orders from the senior defendants, who were responsible for designing and approving the tax shelters.
“You’re beginning to already see the finger-pointing,” said a lawyer for one of the KPMG defendants, declining to be named or to name his client, saying he did not want to jeopardize the case. “It’s going to get antagonistic.”
