But for Bernard L. Madoff, Marc S. Dreier might be a household name.
Accused of money laundering, wire fraud, securities fraud and other charges, Dreier pleaded guilty Monday in federal court in Manhattan. He had been charged with selling nearly $700 million in fake promissory notes. Investors may have lost as much as $400 million.
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He faces a sentence of 20 years to life on each of the most serious charges against him.
“I understand that everything I was doing was illegal,” Dreier told U.S. District Judge Jed Rakoff on the day before his 59th birthday, Bloomberg news reported.
Rakoff allowed Dreier to remain under house arrest until his July 13 sentencing.
By a purely monetary standard, Dreier’s offenses did not match those of Madoff, who took investors for as much as $68 billion.
However, Dreier beats Madoff on style points, according to Robert Kolker of New York Magazine.
“Dreier took a starring role in his own financial drama,” Kolker wrote. “Where Madoff was outwardly quiet and self-effacing, Dreier was openly egotistical, even smug. He seemed to think he could lie to his victims’ faces and get away with it, to thrill, even, in the art of deceiving people.
A graduate of Harvard Law School, Dreier was the founder of Dreier LLP, a 250-member firm that had offices in New York City and Los Angeles before it fell apart after Dreier’s arrest.
Seemingly successful, Dreier lived the high life before his troubles became public. He collected cars, art, celebrity friends. He gave to charities; dated beautiful women.
He also created a financial house of cards that began to tumble last year as some investors asked for their money back.
Scrambling for funds, Dreier flew to Toronto in December. While there, he represented himself to a hedge fund executive as an official with the Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan.
Something seemed wrong to the hedge fund guy; the police were tipped off. Dreier was arrested for impersonation. He spent a few days in jail and then was released on $100,000 bail.
Unshaven, looking like someone coming up for air after a binge, Dreier headed back to the U.S. Authorities welcomed him a LaGuardia Airport with an arrest warrant.
He stayed in jail until February when he was released on a $10 million bond.
Under the terms of his bail, Dreier, who is represented by defense attorney Gerald L. Shargel, can’t leave his Upper East Side apartment without court permission.
He has to pay for security guards and can’t have a cell phone. (The apartment is now for sale for $10 million.)
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