Miami lawyer faces up to five years in prison after pleading guilty to extorting bank

AMiami attorney who has practiced law for nearly 50 years recently pleaded guilty to trying to extort millions of dollars from a California bank, including threatening to release damaging information that had been obtained by his client.

Richard L. Williams, 73, faces up to five years in prison after pleading guilty earlier this month to conspiring with the client “with intent to extort” $7.5 million from the bank, which was not identified by federal prosecutors.

“He acknowledged his guilt and wanted to accept responsibility,” Williams’ defense attorney, Wanda Akin, told the Miami Herald on Thursday. She added that “he received no money” in the scheme.

Williams, who is currently listed as a “member in good standing” with the Florida Bar, now faces an “emergency suspension” as a result of his conviction, according to a spokesperson for the legal organization. Williams, whose Bar profile lists him as a graduate of Harvard Law School in 1973, has practiced mainly business litigation.

Williams’ client, who was not named or charged in the lawyer’s criminal case, had multiple business accounts with the California bank and obtained the “confidential data” from its website without authorization in May of this year, according to court records. The nature of the data was not explained in the court record or why the information was so compromising.

Williams and his client “agreed that they would divide between themselves the proceeds of their extortion scheme,” according to the conspiracy charge. Williams sent a proposed agreement to an attorney for the bank with a plan to hire his client as an advisor to justify the extortion payment, the charging document says.

The case was made by the FBI and federal prosecutors in New Jersey this summer when an undercover agent engaged Williams in a series of telephone conversations. The agent, posing as a representative of the California bank through its New Jersey office, led Williams to believe that he was trying to resolve the $7.5 million extortion demand, court records show.

During phone conversations, Williams warned the undercover agent that if his client were not paid, the confidential data would be disclosed to the public, according to a news release by the U.S. Attorney’s Office in New Jersey. Williams said

HE ACKNOWLEDGED HIS GUILT AND WANTED TO ACCEPT RESPONSIBILITY. Wanda Akin, defense attorney for Richard L. Williams

that if “third parties” unrelated to him and his client found out about the data, there might be “violent consequences” for the bank.