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This page lists some of the most popular documents available on BankruptcyMisconduct.com for download at no charge.   You can also retrieve documents directly from our Documents section where they are organized by category.

Do you have documents which expose misconduct or fraud done by or with the support of attorneys, bankruptcy professionals, official committee members or hedge funds? Let us know, maybe we can host them here on our site.

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CA Bar Revised Complaint

Revised ethics complaint to the California State Bar ("CA Bar") alleging a series of disclosure failures and extreme misconduct by Hennigan, Bennett, & Dorman ("HBD") with respect to their appointment as counsel to the Debtor In Possession Aureal, Inc. vis a vis a number of HBD's simultaneous clients which were adverse to Aureal including hedge fund Oaktree Capital et al., Argo Partners, and PriceWaterhouseCoopers. The Revised Complaint was supplemented by additional documents requested by the CA Bar and was thereby expanded to include ethical violations related to and intertwined with SEC Violations. These additional documents are available on this site under the title: SEC filings by client of PriceWaterhouseCoopers and HBD.

AmmoCore / Cadence Design Systems

Anthanassios Katsioulas and the Board of Directors of Ammocore Technology, Inc. object to the Trustee’s Motion to Settle Adversary Proceeding with Cadence Design Systems et al. We hope to get exhibits to this motion. There are reports that the BigLaw firm MNAT, famous for their involvement with eToys bankruptcy case, was representing the outside public firm which allegedly exerted de facto control over AmmoCore causing its bankruptcy filing and acquiring certain of its assets.

WebSci Technologies, Tare, & the failed pro se censure

WebSci: This case might exemplify the audacious criminal element which operates with the authority of the Court in some of the small business bankruptcies. Allegations include a private Trustee who 1) filed false sworn affadivats which hid a business relationship with the secured lender, 2) the failure to disclose sale proceeds on a sworn operating report, 3) the failure to place sale proceeds in the Debtor's bank account or in a trust bank account, 4) conspiracy to deprive a pro se business owner of a voice by speciously ordering any appeals filing to first be approved by the lower court, 5) the suppression of appeals filings by holding same and failing to deliver to the appeals court, and 6) threatening a pro se business owner with incarceration for having the nerve to file evidence with an appeals court of fraud upon the lower court by opposing counsel. Watch this case. We will and we won't let its ultimate resolution, including all derivative criminal matters, disappear quietly. If John Grisham wrote this story as a novel, he would be derided by legal experts as having constructed a plot that was too far fetched.

"I see you, I'm going to kill you."

A Bankruptcy Attorney states to a creditor in the WorldCom bankruptcy : "I see you, I'm going to kill you." Taken in the full context of the transcript the statement is shocking. The transcript was affirmed as being accurate by this quoted attorney in Federal court before Judge ARTHUR J. GONZALEZ . At "best", this lawyer is advising to his client the legality of issuing death threats and portrays this lawyer's casual acceptance towards the use of extortion by a bankruptcy professional against a creditor in the ordinary course of a "mega case" bankruptcy. Perhaps more accurately we witness the lawyer conveying a death threat to his client: either a thinly veiled warning that other parties will kill the client, or the lawyer himself is threatening his own client.
   Either way, there is no possible dispute of the fact that this lawyer brought up the subject of death threats during an increasingly heated discussion in which this lawyer adamantly refused to expose before the court the issue of conflicted relationships with and favoritism towards certain hedge funds. In a Fabulous Flip Flop Fantastique, this lawyer forbade his own associate attorney (his employee) from filing the very same document which his employee drafted for the client at the client's expense. In other words, the client did not prepare a document and tell this lawyer"Put your name on what I wrote and file it". This Lawyer's own associate wrote the document, and then this more senior partner said "I won't let my own employee file the work he prepared at your expense"! (Plus the death threat). Why such a 180 degree change of heart? Why the mention of death threats? The document merely asks the court to direct the official law firms working on behalf of the Worldcom Bankruptcy estate (they earned hundreds of millions of dollars in fees) to update their conflict disclosures, and for Worldcom to identify differences in distributions to creditors as to the timing of payment and the percentage of payment.   Such a simple request that the Court orders a party to disclose information is extremely common in bankruptcy cases. What isn't common is that the nations most powerful billion dollar BigLaw firms and their hedge fund clients are the target of the request.

   Why bring up death threats? What lawyer in his right mind interjects the subject of death and murder - in the context of extortion - when giving legal advice to a client in a bankruptcy case? Did the remarks by this lawyer constitute a criminal act? Any preliminary investigation would first have to determine if there were any undisclosed conflicts or favoritism in the distributions to the small circle of claims traders holding some $600 Million dollars worth of claims. Such an investigation would be extremely easy given that a special prosecutor could start with a form letter to the few dozen law firms involved, and the 50 or so claims traders Since these 50 or so claims traders shared lawyers in "negotiating" a higher payout thansimilarly situated creditors ( in violation, without limitation, of 11 U.S.C. § 1129) they could share lawyers in drafting their responces. Furthermore, Worldcom's complete distributions are maintained in a computer database and each payment amount and date is easily compared to the amounts and dates of payments to "normal" creditors who have never otherwise paid any of these lawyers any money. And while the special prosecutor is investigating, maybe he can figure out why Eliot Spitzer refused to allow New York State to perform any criminal or ethical action against any of the New York lawyers involved, even after his office received a complete copy of the affirmed transcript.
  Here is an important point of information and possible explanation: a few special BigLaw firms which make hundreds of millions of dollars from estate fees (such as the fees in the Worldcom bankruptcy) when they seek advantage for certain hedge funds, are both supremely powerful and financially motivated to destroy any small law firm which dared to question the facts of undisclosed conflicts and violations of bankruptcy law which might interfere with their "business model". 300 pound gorillas follow their own set of ethics rules and are otherwise above the law when their organized crime affiliates infiltrate the DOJ and the Judiciary. This is the reality of ACPOC Syndrome and the fact that a small law firm could get detroyed by merely exposing misconduct of more powerful firms. Was a Doug a coward, or a pragmatist?

Worldcom : Objection to ACPOC motion of counsel w/ "death threat"

In the largest ever bankruptcy case - Worldcom - the bankruptcy attorney who was then currently representing one of the largest unaffiliated (unconflicted) claims traders (Next Factors, Inc.) petitioned the Court to be relieved from continuing as Next's counsel. The lawyer admits that his reason for seeking permission to withdraw was that he did not want to follow the instructions of his client in seeking to have all potential conflicts between the multi-hundred million dollar fee earning lawyers and their hedge fund clients exposed. You can't make this stuff up: The lawyer tried to shake his client off by conveying a death threat during a conversation with the president of Next Factors. A transcript of the conversation was attached to this filing and the attorney did not merely tacitly acknowledge that the transcript was accurate, he complained that "apparantly" the conversation was recorded without his knowledge. This is better than a TV show. People ask me: "but, umm, like wouldn't the government do something?" Yes, each and every DOJ official, Judge, and officer of the court which learned of the exchange and underlying facts would have done something, provided that they remained true to their oaths to uphold the law, follow professional ethics codes, and defend the Constitution. Sadly it appears that too many public officials connected to the multi-billion dollar bankruptcy industry hold their allegiances to their own families, bank accounts, racial agendas, and organized crime affiliates above all else.

Worldcom : Objection to ACPOC Motion - Exhibits

The exhibits to the Objection of the ACPOC motion include some awesome documents. First, it includes at exhibit C the transcript of the discussion between the bankruptcy lawyer and his client wherein the lawyer advises that it is legal to threaten to kill someone. Secondly, a long series of letters between the client's lawyer and a number of lawyers working for WorldCom. Specifically, Weil Gotshal & Manges received numerous letters where the creditors lawyer urged that attention be focused on threats by lawyers for Worldcom against the creditor, and on the arbitrary releases being sought which were not authorized by the confirmed plan of reorganization but would have had the affect of releasing WorldCom from all claims derivative of extortion, racketeering, and bankruptcy fraud.

Criminal Notification to Thomas P. O'Brien - U.S. Attorney

Criminal referral by court appointed liquidator to U.S. Attorney Thomas P. O'Brien as against multiple parties including:

U.S. Attorney Colm F. Connolly

Traub, Bonacquist & Fox, L.L.P. >

Dreier LLP

Morris, Nichols, Arsht & Tunnell

Administrative Actions By U.S. Trustee Program

Notice the scant few administrative actions by the DOJ against the countless numbers of private Official Bankruptcy Trustees who have been authorized by the Feds to essentially set their own income level as they extract their hefty percentages from the poorest and most defenseless of our citizens. Yet, even with the extreme bias in favor of their brethren attorneys and other "professional" relations, some of the most egregious crap can't help but float to the top. But fear not fellow citizens, unlike any ordinary citizen, the DOJ not only protects the identities not only of the accused, but the DOJ also hides the identity of those Trustees it finds guilty! The names are removed to protect the guilty. This is the Department of Justice?.

SEC filings by client of PriceWaterhouseCoopers and HBD

This document is a letter requested by Marc J. Fagel, associate Regional Director for the Securities and Exchange Commission, during a phone call wherein facts were revealed concerning failures to comply with mandatory reporting of the resignation of directors by the public company Aureal, Inc. Such facts being far more egregious than the facts surrounding the enforcement action against HP for failing to disclose the reason behind a director resignation as stated in the press release by Marc J. Fagel and Linda Chatman Thomsen of the SEC. Significantly, this letter details the control relationship over the non-complying Registrant by a multi-billion dollar hedge fund known as Oaktree Capital. The resulting actions of the SEC will indicate whether the bold pronouncements by Ms. Thomsen re: firm regulatory action against hedge funds will truely apply to all such entities, including: hedge funds which hire former U.S. government attorney employees of the DOJ for services related to the acts.

Attorney General John D. Ashcroft admits corruption in U.S. and describes the challenge

The chief law enforcement officer of the Unites States of America meets with similar officials of the world at a global summit sponsored by the Ducth at The Hague. Ashcroft exhorts his peers to fight corruption and declares that the battle is not merely one for justice, but also of morality. Ashcroft draws a parallel to the fight against corruption with the ideals of religion and faith. Most significantly, Ashcroft singles out the challenge of fighting corruption within the Judiciary and Law Enforcement.

Testimony by former U.S. Trustee to Congress On Misguided Administration

A former U.S. Trusttee attorney testifies as to the misguided and mean spirited administration of the U.S. Trustee program as it seeks to punish the poor and other small individuals for the sake of statistics. (Meanwhile, the highest level administration of the Office of the U.S. Trustee keeps blinders wrapped tightly around it's head so as to avoid seeing, or acting upon, outrageous criminality when it involves their related law partners, relations, past employers, hedge funds, or any potential future employer.)

Racist, Sexist, Pig - A Slap on Wrist for Official Bankrupty Trustee under DOJ Administration

A racist, sexist, harassing habitual offender granted the powers of an Official Trustee in bankruptcy courts is given a slap on the wrist by the United States Deparment of Justice and having his identity confidential even after found guilty. Perhaps this attorney receives this special protection because he is an official working within the powers of a Federal Bankruptcy Court. What should enrage citizens across the country is that the DOJ protects this pig like no other citizen. Please note: BankruptcyMisconduct.com did not redact (hide) the name of this pig and the court that this pig operated in and the judge he operated under. It is the U.S. Trustee Program which is hiding the identity of this pig. The U.S. Trustee program protects their relations in private practise like any mother pig would protect her muck loving piglets. Thus, his identity is protected. The Result? No journalist can report on the matter, the pig can't get his picture taken and placed in the newspaper, and the victims of this pig aren't likely to get justice in a courtroom. What else should we expect from the Department of Justice?

Judge testifies before Congress

TESTIMONY of A. JAY CRISTOL, Chief Judge Emeritus, United States Bankruptcy Court before the Subcommittee on Administrative and Commercial Law House of Representatives Judiciary Committee as to the misguided efforts of the DOJ's office of the U.S. Trustee. Judge Cristol referred to these government attorneys as "a pack of dogs" and criticized their misguided focus on punishing individual bankruptcy filers for trivial and technical issues and their related efforts at grandstanding and self promotion built upon the backs of the poor in the bankruptcy courts.

Supreme Court of New NY - eToys Suit against Goldman Sachs

eToys is not a destination. eToys is a process, the tip of the spear in a revolution by government attorneys and members of the Federal Judiciary against the corruption within which dared to attempt to taint the honor of scores of honest and just public servants, and which abused the freedom won for all U.S. Citizens by the sacrifices of our Veterans.

U.S. Trustee's peculiar responce in re: eToys

It has been alleged that certain government lawyers operating as official U.S. Trustees including Stapleton, DeAngelis, Kenney and Vara, all committed Perjury in the Third Circuit appeal, as they defended the right to give implied, blanket, immunity to the felony acts, by stating, Falsely, in their opposition that the appeal had no merits. (3rd Cir 07-2360). Voluminous postings on the internet further allege 1) that some of the government lawyers involved in the eToys scandal were formerly associated with some of the Biglaw law firms which Haas "the whistle-blower" accused of fraud upon the court when failing to disclose conflict of interest, and 2) that some of the government lawyers alleged to have failed to take approriate initial action were later sitting in administrative positions having authority to evaluate subsequent complaints as to their own prior conduct, and further did not recuse themselves or make public this self-policing conflict.

eToys Docket

The docket for the eToys bankruptcy case, showing the retribution against Laser Haas. Mr. Haas was the original liquidator for the eToys estate. He relates that he resisted efforts to sell certain of the assets to certain entities at prices he considered too low and arranged for sales at higher prices to different persons. Mr. Haas says that he was threatened to stop "interfering" with the sales, though he thought obtaining the highest recovery for the estate was his job. Mr. Haas has made significant efforts to publicize his research that showed these apparrantly favored "low price" buyers to have beenundisclosed clients of the same bankruptcy lawyers that were officially employed as DIP counsel to the bankruptcy estate. Failing to disclose a conflict of interest by a bankruptcy law firm by filing a false affadivit is a serious federal crime. Engaging in the willful cover up of same is arguably worse.

   Just as thesub-prime crisis appears poised to bring down Wall Street, the failure to prosecute obvious crimes by lawyers secretly representing conflicted hedge fund clients, as epitomized in the unfolding eToys saga, will surely awaken the public to the decades long established "corrupt business as usual" masquerade played by revolving door DOJ lawyers pretending to prosecute crimes all the while these dirty lawyers plot their lucrative moves into multi-million dollar partnership positions at BigLaw law firms.

     The Deferred Prosecution Agreement is a blatantly corrupt device when former government regulators are designated to receive extraordinary payments as part of the process. Follow the money: Corruption is What Corruption Does.   This depraved tricker was born of the abuse of prosecutorial discretion and existed long before its incredulous emergence out of the shadows, as countless ever greater corporate frauds were ignored by career savvy DOJ lawyers who privately ridiculed their oaths. The willful failure by DOJ lawyers to incarcerate their private practise bretherin after Leslie Fay / Bear Stearns was a seed which bore the fruit of Enron and WorldCom. Similar failures by DOJ lawyers to incarcerate corporate executive criminals established the consequence free playing field upon which was born the sub-prime financial crisis.

   The current financial crisis is not one of laws, but of the failure to enforce the laws on the books. It doesn't matter how many laws we have or how well written if they are never enforced against the powerfull. If the prosecutors are corrupt, the criminals run free. Let's not forget that Eliot Spitzer was a U.S. Attorney, all the while he engaged in business with organized crime violating numerous federal statutes. There is a saying: "Physician, heal thyself". Our own Attorney General warned of the existence of more public corruption than we can detect and prosecute, and specifically identified Law Enforcement and the Judiciary as needed a close look. We are in need of a Federal Special Prosecutor to examine corruption in the DOJ regarding willful failures to enforce the law against law firms representing powerful hedge funds.

Affidavit re: Opposition to ACPOC Motion by HG&K to benefit MNAT

The law firm, Heiman Gouge & Kaufman, LLP ("Heiman") which was representing the whistle-blower in the eToys bankruptcy case needed the court's approval to stop representing the whistleblower and thus filed a motion to be relieved. This behavior is known as an ACPOC Syndrome Motion whereby a lawfirm seeks to abandon its client in order to avoid taking action which could bring punishment on an opposing attorney. The whistleblower filed this affidavit showing relevant facts unreported by Heiman in their motion, as well as an extraordinary letter from a different honorable lawer who would not let Heiman dance around its responsibility.

Judge Rosemary Gambardella's conflicted stock holdings

George D. Reynolds of the Judicial Conference of the United States Committee on Financial Disclosure released to Mr. Tare, at his specific request, the proof of Judge Rosemary Gambardella having owned stock in Verizon. Why didn't Ms. Gambardella consistently recuse herself from issues involving companies in which she owned stock, but instead employed a willy nilly decision method so that she stayed in control of rulings against WebSci and Mr. Tare?

BankruptcyMisconduct has heard rumors that a Judge deciding issues in the WebSci matters in favor of a certain prominent national bank was at the same time being sponsored by the very same bank at speaking engagements. Show us the money. Keep an eye on the documents related to WebSci here.

The Appeal of CA Bar Decision: "We don't have standing on attorney Misconduct"

The California Bar ("CA Bar") flip flopped a few times and ultimately decided that it did not have standing to investigate or prosecute ethical misconduct. This outrageous notion was appealed, but a remarkable set of facts related to the alleged misconduct became apparant in conjunction with a request by the CA Bar for additional backing documents. (BankruptcyMisconduct.com makes no comment as to whether one or more persons within the CA Bar assisted in the efforts to bring the Respondents to justice by drawing attention to the Securities Violations issue.) As described in the Revised Complaint together with communication to the CA Bar and the SEC, the numerous contemporaneous ethics and securities violations were inextricably intertwined with the disclosure failures in the Aureal bankruptcy proceedings. The disclosure failures before the bankruptcy court and in SEC filings are not only criminal, but in furtherance of each other. Thus, for example, violations of 18 U.S.C. § 1001 in certain SEC filings were sustained by a coordinated failure to make parallel mandatory disclosure in the bankruptcy court. We believe that the bankruptcy fraud is inseperable (intertwined) with securities fraud and by numerous statutes (18 U.S.C. §§'s 2,3,4) and case law envelopes all parties tangentially involved in assisting, planning, inducing, protecting, failing to report, or the cover-up.

Perhaps we shouldn't be too hard on the California State Bar. Like every other state bar organization, the CA Bar gets their money from their lawyer members, and each bar admits that they perceive their role to assist their lawyer members. How convenient then that each of these bar orgs hold monopoloy power over the investigation and prosecution of attorney misconduct complaints. Worse, many of these bar orgs operate under strict secrecy including the complaints (not public in contrast with non-lawyers), their deliberations, and the identities of those making rulings. In any other profession this would be called a conflict of interest. We shouldn't be too surprised that the California Bar did everything they could to get out of prosecuting this Complaint and Revised Complaint against HBD (Hennigan, Bennett & Dorman). They went went so far as to claim, in writting bless their souls, that the CA Bar does not believe it holds jurisdiction to review complaints about attorney ethics and misconduct. An outrageous notion which flies in the face of their stated mission, so we appealed the decision. The brother lawyers sitting on the California State Supreme Court simply ignored the appeal. Absolute power corrupts absolutely. If we citizens want to transfer supreme rights and powers to lawyers and let them operate above the law, we should expect that they will steal ever greater portions of our moneys, dignity, & freedom. Why should we hold baseball stars to stricter legal standards than lawyers? Consider how many houses thay you own, and pity the bankruptcy lawyer who only owns two.
Perhaps we shouldn't be too hard on the California Bar - they decided to move to prosecute this complaint at least twice (in writting bless their souls), before some invisible hand smacked them down. Kind of like a politician who voted against the war before he voted for it. Perhaps the most absurd notion is that we hold political candidates to a higher standard than lawyers. What unseen force keeps the main stream media from reporting on the obvious corruption of our legal system?
Perhaps some lawyers working behind the scenes at the CA Bar should be thanked for directing efforts towards the SEC.

Exhibits to Appeal of CA Bar Decision

The exhibits to the appeal of the decision against investigation and prosecution of the Revised Compaint. These exhibits include flip flop decisions by the CA Bar, communications with them, additional documentation they requested, as well as the original Complaint and the Revised Complaint. The Complaint (as revised) was against lawyers who filed numerous false declarations in a bankruptcy court, such false declarations as having been in furtherance of numerous SEC Violations whereby a $30+ Billion dollar hedge fund took control of a public company, replaced its directors, and extracted all of the money - sharing none of it with minority stockholders, and failing to disclose in mandatory SEC filings the entire process. The Original Complaint and the Revised Complaint are exhibit entries to the appeal, but these two documents are also available separately on this site in their original form as .pdf files with their internal document navigation links preserved when viewed with an Acrobat compatible reader.
Prominently featured in the Revised Complaint are conflicted clients of the Respondents: Oaktree Capital et al., Argo Partners and PwC a/k/a PriceWaterhouseCoopers. This is a large .pdf document.

Short Version: DOJ $300M COVER-UP

The best short version of the eToys crimes with the assistance of the DOJ as described by Laser Haas on one of his websites. Later sections contain other snippets during this "pre-blossoming" phase of this massive organized crime / public corruption saga, which to date has has drawn the interest of many DOJ employees outside of the Office of the U.S. Trustee as well as certain members of Congressional Committees. This document snapshot resides here on bankruptcyMisconduct.com to make the evil efforts at censoring and silencing the whistle-blower just that much more difficult for the media control operations of the organized crime operators involved in the underlying eToys crimes and their Cover-Up. We are also happy to help raise visibility and speed dissemination of the issues to students and concerned citizens. The file is in .pdf format and can be searched or printed.

Judge Walrath finds disclosure failure in eToys

Federal judge Mary Walrath agrees that there was a failure to make a disclosure in the eToys bankruptcy case, and orders disgorgement of fees from a lawfirm which failed in their disclosure duty. However, in a perverse abuse of the concept of "professional courtesy", Judge Walrath, for the benefit of her fellow lawyers, ignores the simple fact that each of the failures to disclose were criminal acts. The acts were criminal as they involved many dozens of false written sworn declarations by lawyers for the law firm. Thus, Walrath straddles the reality of the conflict failure with one leg as she attempts to balance her own reluctance (refusal?) to refer the perjury & fraud upon the court to the appropriate district attorney. You can't see one issue without seeing the other. Such a referral is required by the Judicial Cannons, case law and statutes including explicity Title 18 U.S.C. § 3057. Furthermore, the Judge is bound by ethical rules to refer the matter to the state bar. "Prostitution" & "Pornography" may be appropriate labels to describe this outrageous lapse of duty by judge Mary F. Walrath. In any event, we are compelled to state that we find her position rather unsightly, to see the least. Yes Virginia, this is called a cover-up. None other than renowned finance professor Lynn LoPucki at UCLA has done research on the bankruptcy industry and concluded that Federal bankruptcy judges are corrupt. Just read his book. Martha Stewart went to prison for a single fib. And yet, these lawyers made millions and are alleged to have helped channel some of the disappeared $8 Billion of value from the eToys estate to their own conflicted clients. The Federal government stands to gain many billions of dollars if it only proceeds with a slam dunk RICO prosecution of the vast neo-sophisticated organized crime hedge funds and lawfirms which dominate and abuse the unique American bankruptcy system.

Bingham McCutchen associates sequentially victimized by Date Rape Drug

The fish stinks from the head down. What ethics and morals exist at a lawfirm specializing in bankruptcy law when more than one of their female junior associate attorneys is given a date-rape drug at an official firm outing? How many actual rapes must occur before Bingham McCutchen either investigates themselves, or reports the pattern of illegality to the police? Would you want such a firm representing any issue on your behalf? What corporate executive or committee member wants to risk having his/her professional career forever linked with the Bingham McCutchen name, particularly if a date rape drug is used at an event associated with a retained matter? Jimmy Buffett sang "I don't know where I'm a gonna go when the Volcano blows".

Your sourced document could be here!

Do you have documents related to misconduct on the part of bankruptcy professionals? Did you submit a complaint to the DOJ, OPR, FBI, SEC, or a state bar association which was apparantly disregarded? Why not send us a copy so academics, students, and young politicians & prosecutors looking to make a name for themselves can access evidence of the pervasive corruption of the U.S. legal system and bankruptcy courts in one convenient location? Leave a comment here, or contact Laser Haas. The bad guys can run, but they can't hide.