Marc Stuart Dreier - Event Timeline

Event Timeline

• May 12, 1950 - Date of Birth
• 1972 - Graduates with B.A. from Yale University.
• 1975 - Graduates with J.D. from Harvard Law School.
• 1984 - Joins Rosenman, Colin, Freund, Lewis & Cohen.
• 1989 - Moves to Fulbright & Jaworski.
• 1995 - Joins Duker & Barrett.
• 1996 - Forms Dreier & Baritz with Neil Baritz of Boca Raton, Florida.
• 1998 - Takes on as a client Sheldon Solow, a New York real estate developer.
• 1999 - Firm is renamed Dreier, Baritz & Federman with addition of William Federman of Oklahoma.
• 2001 - Federman and Dreier dissolve their relationship.
• 2002 - Baritz leaves the firm. Federman sues Dreier over client escrow funds the matter ultimately settles.
• 2003 - Dreier LLP grows to some 30 lawyers, with Dreier functioning as the sole equity partner. He pays the bills but also has control over at least 12 client escrow funds.

Dreier moves aggressively over the next few years to bring a number of affiliates under his umbrella, opening offices in Stamford, Conn., Albany, New York, Pittsburgh, Los Angeles and Santa Monica, Calif.

• 2004 - Dreier LLP increases to 50 lawyers.

Dreier begins marketing promissory notes supposedly issued by Solow Realty & Development Co. to various hedge funds and investment funds. The "notes" pay between 8 percent and 12 percent interest with terms of between one and two years. In several instances, Dreier provides fake financial statements, backed up with forged letters purportedly issued by the accounting firm Berdon LLP.

• 2006 - Dreier LLP increases to 100 lawyers.
• September 2006 - Traub, Bonacquist & Fox joins Dreier. Paul Traub becomes partner, and co-chair of the bankruptcy practice.
• 2007 - Dreier LLP grows to 175 attorneys.
• 2008 - Firm peaks at 250 lawyers.
• October 15, 2008 - Dreier walks into the offices of Solow Realty at 9 West 57th St. with Kosta Kovachev. The pair use a conference room to present Kovachev as a top Solow official and reassure two hedge fund managers about their investment in the promissory notes.
• October 23, 2008 - Kovachev and Dreier use a law firm conference room in Stamford, where Kovachev impersonates a Solow executive on the phone and helps to seal the sale of $100 million in notes to a hedge fund.
• November 2008 - Thomas Manisero, a partner at Wilson Elser Moskowitz Edelman & Dicker, representing Berdon LLP, confronts Dreier in a phone call, saying he believed Dreier forged an audit report in an effort to dupe a hedge fund into buying more fictitious Solow notes.
• December 1, 2008 - A bankruptcy partner tells Dreier, who is in Canada, and the firm's controller that a $38.5 million payment is due a client, 360networks Corp. The controller finds the escrow accounts have only $19 million.
• December 2, 2008 - Dreier is arrested in Toronto by Canadian authorities for criminal impersonation after he pretends to be a lawyer with the Ontario Teachers' Pension Fund, which he claims was guaranteeing the notes he was trying to peddle to another hedge fund.

News of his arrest sparks emergency partnership meetings and attorneys affiliated with the firm begin jumping ship.

• December 7, 2008 - Dreier is arrested after returning to the United States and hires veteran defense attorney Gerald Shargel.
• December 8, 2008 - Dreier makes his initial appearance in the Southern District on one count each of securities fraud and wire fraud. Shargel makes it clear the case will not go to trial, intimating that his client will plead guilty within months.

The Securities and Exchange Commission files a civil suit against Dreier.

• December 11, 2008 - Assistant U.S. Attorney Jonathan Streeter says the size of Dreier's fraud is $380 million and growing. Citing "an enormous risk of flight," Magistrate Judge Douglas F. Eaton refuses to authorize bail.
• December 16, 2008 - Citing "an accelerating onslaught" of demands from creditors, clients and attorneys, court-appointed receiver Mark F. Pomerantz files for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection for Dreier LLP.
• December 22, 2008 - Kovachev is arrested and charged with conspiracy to commit wire fraud for his impersonation.
• December 23, 2008 - The Appellate Division, First Department, suspends Dreier from the practice of law "on the basis of uncontroverted evidence of serious professional misconduct.
• January 22, 2009 - Magistrate Judge Eaton agrees to set bail conditions, but they are so tough that Shargel says his client has been "effectively" denied bail.
• January 29, 2009 - Dreier is indicted for defrauding investors of more than $400 million. The case is assigned to Judge Jed. S. Rakoff.
• February 5, 2009 - Judge Rakoff sets bail conditions that include confinement monitored by a 24-hour armed guard at Dreier's penthouse at 151 E. 58th St.
• February 13, 2009 - Dreier is released from the Metropolitan Correctional Center, New York City.
• March 17, 2009 - A superseding indictment includes new charges against Dreier. An accompanying forfeiture allegation seeks to recover $700 million - the amount of fake notes the government says Dreier sold to investors.
• April 22, 2009 - Streeter and fellow prosecutor Raymond Lohier file a new criminal information against Kovachev alleging he was paid $215,000 from Dreier LLP accounts to impersonate the Solow executive and perform other tasks. Kovachev pleads not guilty.
• April 27, 2009 - Shargel announces at a hearing that Dreier intends to plead guilty to all eight counts in the indictment.
• May 11, 2009 - On the eve of his 59th birthday, Dreier pleads guilty.
• July 7, 2009 - Dreier pens a letter to Judge Rakoff confessing the details of his life of crime.
• July 8, 2009 - Dreier's Attorney Shargel asks the judge for a 'rational and proportionate' sentence of some 10 to 12 years. Prosecutors seek 145 years sentence.
• July 13, 2009 - Judge Rakoff sentences Dreier to 20 years in prison.
• July 21, 2009 - Dreier apartment at 151 E. 58th St. was sold at auction for $8.2 million, about $2 million less than the $10.43 million he paid in 2007.
• October 4, 2009 – "Marc Dreier, The Mind of a Swindler, CBS, 60 Minutes news magazine
• October 8, 2009 – Dreier is disbarred by the State of New York.
• November 2, 2009 – Kosta S. Kovachev pleads guilty to impersonation, fraud etc..
• November 9, 2009 – Robert Miller pleads guilty to conspiracy, fraud, impersonation, etc.
• March 31, 2010 – Kosta S. Kovachev is sentenced to 46 months and a $215,000 fine.
• May 2, 2010 – Documentary film about Marc Dreier, Unraveled, directed by Marc Simon, has world premiere at Toronto's Hot Docs Festival
• October 26, 2026 - scheduled prison release date

- partially compiled by Mark Hamblett, The American Lawyer