Rothstein petitions court to cut 50-year prison term

Ponzi schemer says he’s earned a break

Ponzi schemer Scott Rothstein is imprisoned and disbarred, but it hasn’t stopped him from flexing his jailhouse lawyer muscles — on his own behalf.

Rothstein, 55, personally filed court documents Thursday to try and force the feds to reduce his 50-year prison sentence.

Rothstein, who pleaded guilty to orchestrating a $1.4 billion Ponzi scheme, first had to obtain permission from Senior U.S. District Judge James Cohn to file his own court pleadings.

The judge consented. Rothstein, who is being held in the U.S. Bureau of Prisons’ secretive witness protection program for inmates, typed up a 13-page legal argument

and submitted it Thursday.

Federal prosecutors initially said they would recommend a sentence reduction for Rothstein because he cooperated extensively in helping them unravel his complicated fraud and because he worked undercover to help them arrest other criminals — including some with Mafia ties.

Those recommendations usually suggest a cut of about 30 percent as a reward for significant assistance from convicts.

But in September, prosecutors formally notified the judge they were withdrawing their offer to reduce Rothstein’s punishment. They have said he violated the terms of his plea agreement by lying to them.

Rothstein’s attorney, Marc Nurik, previously filed court records seeking to force prosecutors to honor their initial offer. The judge has not yet ruled on that request.

But Rothstein apparently grew antsy when he was unable to communicate with Nurik and submitted his own additional legal arguments. Both men have said that it is unusually difficult for them to communicate because Rothstein is in one of the system’s witnessprotection prisons and access to him is subject to extraordinarily high levels of security clearance.

Though veteran defense attorneys say prosecutors have absolute discretion to withdraw their offer to cut a prison term, Rothstein is fighting hard to get the judge to side with him.

Rothstein wrote that he believes he has earned a sentence reduction and that prosecutors don’t have the right to withdraw their offer. He claims they are violating the terms of his plea agreement with them.

“Defendant engaged in extremely dangerous undercover work,” Rothstein wrote in his motion.

He also wrote that, when prosecutors initially filed paperwork saying they would eventually recommend a sentence reduction, eight “targets — or suspects — had been charged and four of them had already pleaded guilty. Rothstein does not identify those individuals.

Rothstein is asking for a hearing on his request. If the judge agrees, it could mean Rothstein would be transferred back to South Florida to attend. He has not been seen in public since 2014, when he testified for the defense in the West Palm Beach trial of one of his former employees, Christina Kitterman. She was convicted and is serving a five-year federal prison term.

Rothstein has been locked up since late 2009, after the implosion of the massive fraud he ran from his upscale law office on Las Olas Boulevard in downtown Fort Lauderdale. He briefly fled to Morocco, but returned to face prosecution.

He later pleaded guilty to masterminding the Ponzi scheme and was sentenced to 50 years in federal prison. His law firm closed, Rothstein was disbarred and several of his former law partners were also imprisoned for a variety of federal crimes.

The location where Rothstein is imprisoned has not been disclosed because officials say he cooperated against Mafia associates and his safety could be in peril. His correspondence was forwarded to the federal courthouse in Fort Lauderdale from offices in Washington, D.C.

Rothstein’s attorney previously filed court records to force prosecutors to honor their initial offer. The judge has not ruled on that.

Rothstein