REVEALED: How lawyer for Andrew ‘sex slave’ girl was given 50 years’ jail ...for exaggerating celebrity sex claims
‘CIAO, ciao – Money never sleeps, Mother******s!’ is hardly the kind of email sign-off normally associated with a conservative, respectable lawyer. But Scott W. Rothstein was far from that.
The flamboyant, brash, and utterly crooked Florida attorney once represented Virginia Roberts – who claims she was abused by Prince Andrew when she was the underage ‘sex slave’ of billionaire financier Jeffrey Epstein.
Now Rothstein is serving a 50-year prison sentence for racketeering and fraud after he used Ms Roberts’ case, along with some other genuine lawsuits and many more completely fictional ones, as part of a complicated £800million ‘Ponzi’ fraud, in which he fleeced rich investors.
For some, the connection to 52-year-old Mr Rothstein, who reputedly had links with the Israeli mafia, casts a murky shadow over the Epstein case and the myriad civil lawsuits in its wake.
For this, after all, is the USA, where ambulance-chasing lawyers abound, with cheesy advertisements dominating local television breaks and highway billboards.
In the case of Rothstein, his addiction to money soon overtook his duty to the law and he took advantage of the hype surrounding the lucrative lawsuits against Epstein to develop a secondary industry supposedly based on the settlements themselves.
Ms Roberts’s current lawyer, Bradley Edwards worked for Rothstein’s law firm, Rothstein Rosenfeldt Adler (RRA) in 2009, when Ms Roberts – then anonymously referred to as ‘Jane Doe 102’ – launched her legal case against convicted paedophile Epstein. The same year, Rothstein’s labyrinthine fraud came crashing down, taking the firm with it.
It soon emerged that Rothstein had lured hordes of wealthy investors into his scheme using his firm’s involvement in the high-profile Epstein case as ‘bait’, along with other lawsuits he had quite simply made up. Rothstein would tell inves- tors that he was representing numerous underage girls who had been abused by Palm Beach billionaire Epstein. But Rothstein exaggerated the size of the settlements, and fabricated many other legal cases involving sexual harassment and corporate whistleblowing.
Rothstein spiced up the cases by hinting that some of Epstein’s celebrity friends were implicated in the sexual allegations and would have to pay huge sums in damages to settle with the victims.
The settlements were supposedly confidential, so the investors had to take Rothstein’s word for it. Adding to the secrecy – and Rothstein’s cover – was the fact that many of the actual plaintiffs in the Epstein case were underage girls known only by initials. Rothstein’s fraud revolved around selling legal settlements to investors, which is legal and fairly common in the States.
It works because a claimant who has settled a case – or whose case looks very strong – may still have to wait months for the cash to be handed over, so may well be willing to take a smaller sum now from a wealthy investor.
So the investors would make upfront cash payments to individuals owed money from the court cases in order to buy the right to collect the full amount of the settlements later. The investor was guaranteed a minimum of 20 per cent investment return in as little as three months.
Rothstein’s ‘ciao ciao’ email was one such pitch to some of his backers. He told them: ‘I have a single deal on a sex harassment case I just settled. It involved a horrific sexual assault against a girl that just turned 18, she was a minor when the attack occurred.
‘She is giving up huge money as she wants the attacker out of her life. She and her Mom are moving the minute she gets her money. Deal is as follows: Fund 18m; Roi [return on investment] 12m; 6 months. Let me know.’
The email meant that investors would pay in $18 million and get back $30million six months later.
But Rothstein knew that there never really was such a lawsuit or cash settlement. So instead, in true Ponzi fashion, he would use some of the money from new investors to pay off earlier ones.
And Rothstein took a fat slice for himself every time. He spent huge amounts on some of Fort Lauderdale’s most eye-catching waterfront properties, spending about £17million on seven houses there. He also forked out another £6million on a New York apartment and a Rhode Island estate.
The governor of Florida, Charlie Crist, was a close friend who attended his wedding and Rothstein had armed security guards at his home and office. And not just any guards. An astonishing 28 members of the local police department, from captains to undercover officers, stood watch in their off-duty hours, providing round-the-clock protection for him.
He told one interviewer: ‘I tend toward the flashy side, but it’s a persona. It’s just a persona...
‘People ask me, “When do you sleep?” I say I’ll sleep when I’m dead. I’m a true Gemini. I joke around that there are 43 people living in my head and you never know what you’re going to get. There are some philanthropists in there, some good lawyers, and I like to think some good businessmen. There are also some guys from the streets of the Bronx that stay hidden away until I need them. Does that sound crazy? I am crazy, but crazy in a good way.’
Outside his personal office hung a painting of Al Pacino as The Godfather’s Michael Corleone.
But unlike The Godfather, when he was brought to book, Rothstein ‘squealed’ to the authorities against the organised crime bosses who had backed his scheme. In fear of his life, he was enrolled in the Depart-
‘There are 43 people in my head... I am crazy’
Rothstein ‘squealed’ against his mob backers
ment of Justice’s witness protection programme, serving his sentence in a secret location. Wherever he is, there will be none of the trappings of wealth he once enjoyed.
He owned an 87ft, £3.3 million yacht and a fleet of cars including four Ferraris, two Lamborghini Murcielagos, each worth around £260,000, a pair of £1million Bugattis, a Rolls-Royce and a Bentley.
He also amassed a collection of 262 luxury watches, which, like the vehicles, were auctioned off, along with some jewellery, for £2.5million after he was busted.
And then there was the trophy wife, of course. Glamorous blonde Kimberley Rothstein, 40, was an estate agent when she became Rothstein’s
second wife. Now she’s serving 18 months for trying to hide jewellery and other assets from prosecutors and bankruptcy officials.
Her divorce proceedings against him hit a snag last summer because Rothstein’s secret location under the witness protection scheme meant a delay in serving papers on him.
A Ponzi scheme can keep going only if enough new investors keep coming in to provide the cash to pay off the older ones. Whether because of the economic downturn, or perhaps his investors began to smell a rat, Rothstein’s funds began to dry up in late 2009, and he soon realised the game was up.
When his scheme unravelled, he fled to Morocco with a share of the loot, having first sent an email to all his lawyers, asking ‘on behalf of a client’ which countries did not have extradition treaties with the United States. After threatening suicide, he returned to face the music shortly afterwards.
None of Rothstein’s clients, such as Ms Roberts, knew anything of his schemes, and neither did the lawyers working for him such as Brad Edwards.
Mr Edwards, a former high school quarterback and a nationally-ranked tennis player, could not be more different from his erstwhile boss. Ranked in the National Trial Lawyers’ Association ‘Top 40 under 40’, he has an enviable reputation for closing cases.
After the demise of RRA, he joined a more sober set of colleagues at another Fort Lauderdale firm.
But when Epstein and his own lawyers heard of Rothstein’s swindle, they tried to use it to their advantage by suing Rothstein and Edwards, claiming they had conspired together to fabricate or ‘boost’ claims against Epstein involving the underage girls.
But Edwards successfully fought the action and was able to argue he was a victim (or potential victim) of Rothstein’s crimes. A complaint by Epstein to the Florida Bar, alleging that Edwards was involved in Rothstein’s crimes was also dismissed.
Mr Edwards did not respond to The Mail on Sunday’s calls or emails. An assistant said he was making ‘no comment on the case at this time’.