Law firm pays $148K in restitution following plea in court
Firm’s attorney says owner didn’t participate in the crime
An Oakland Countybased law firm was ordered to pay nearly $150,000 in restitution for filing bogus Proofs of Service in collections cases after its president pleaded no contest to maintaining a criminal enterprise, the Attorney General’s Office reported Tuesday.
The plea by Marc Fishman of the Fishman Group PC was presented March 7 to Oakland County Circuit Judge Mary Ellen Brennan during a pretrial hearing, and immediate sentencing was granted. Restitution of $148,552 was ordered and paid to the firm’s debtors in Oakland, Genesee and Ingham counties who had been improperly garnished, the AG’s Office stated. State costs and a crime victim fee totaling $198 were also assessed by the court.
“The perpetrators of these crimes represent some of the worst of what the legal profession has to offer,” Attorney General Dana Nessel stated in a news release. “For their own financial gain, these attorneys preyed on vulnerable people who lacked sufficient knowledge about the legal system.”
The Fishman Group had initially been charged with one count of conducting a criminal enterprise in Oakland County, according to the AG’s Office. Additional charges filed against Marc Fishman in Genesee County were dismissed in 2022, as were class action suits in federal court and Genesee County Circuit Court.
In an email to The Oakland Press, Mark Kriger, attorney for Marc Fishman and the Fishman Group PC, stated that the individual charges against Fishman were dropped because “there was no evidence that Mr. Fishman had personal knowledge that false proofs of service were being filed.” That was backed up by a polygraph Fishman was administered, he added.
“In fact, when the associate who admitted filing the false proofs of service was interviewed at the time of her arrest, she was specifically asked whether Marc Fishman had knowledge of false Proofs of Service were being filed, she said no,” Kriger stated.
Kriger further stated that Marc Fishman was the one to enter the plea on behalf of the law firm because he was its sole shareholder.
Meanwhile, additional charges are pending in Oakland and Genesee counties for Marc Fishman’s son, attorney Ryan Fishman.