A lawyer, who was formerly from law firm Baker and McKenzie, is facing a prison sentence of 15 years for a role which he played in conspiring to commit a $55 million stock fraud. The lawyer is supposed to have helped with the scam while he was working for the former Jenkins and Gilchrist legal firm. Reuters reported that Mr Weisberg had pleaded guilty on one account of money laundering and also a conspiracy to commit securities fraud in connection with two separate criminal indictments. Mr Weisberg stated that he knew his actions were both wrong and were violations of the law. He said at a plea hearing, which took place before the US District Judge Nicholas Garaufis, that he deeply regretted his actions.

Weisberg who is now 61 years old and his legal team declined to make a comment after the hearing took place in the Brooklyn Federal Court. He now faces up to 15 years in jail in compensation for his crimes when his sentence takes place on September 14th of this year. Weisberg was indicted back in 2007 when he was accused of conspiring with officers at two major companies in order to commit the $55 million stock fraud scam.

The alleged criminal activity took place while Mr Weisberg was working in New York for a law firm which is now defunct, Jenkins and kill Jenkens & Gilchrist Parker Chapin. The second indictment happened a year later in 2008 when he allegedly siphoned off $1.6 million in interest from a client’s escrow account whilst working at the New York office of Baker and McKenzie, a firm which he had joined back in 2005. The prosecutor stated that Weisberg was the escrow agent for a client and was in charge of managing a $30 million account for the large corporation and two of its affiliate entities. Weisberg placed a portion of the money in a high-interest account without telling his clients, subsequently spending around $1.3 million of the interest on himself.