Turkish Gold Trader Hires 15 Top U.S. Defense Lawyers

A Turkish gold trader accused of money laundering and violating Iran sanctions has assembled a “dream team” of 15 defense attorneys from top U.S. law firms, with one more in the wings, reports Benjamin Weiseraug in the New York Times. It’s reminiscent, he says, of the team that got an acquittal for O.J. Simpson in his murder trial back in 1995. One of the members of that team, Harvard law professor Alan M. Dershowitz, acknowledged that it suffered from “too many cooks,” but the group defending gold trader Reza Zarrab is likely to have fewer difficulties, he says, because the case will get less publicity and because of the leadership of prominent New York defense attorney Benjamin Brafman. Among the clients Brafman got off were Sean “Diddy” Combs and Dominique Strauss-Kahn. Other attorneys on the team include former U.S. solicitor general Paul D. Clement, former assistant U.S attorney Viet D. Dinh (old friend and former Harvard classmate of the prosecutor in the case, Manhattan U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara), and former White House deputy counsel William A. Burck. Total fees if this case goes to trial could be in the tens of millions of dollars, Weiseraug estimates, noting that in a 2014 court filing Clement’s fees were recorded at $1,350 an hour.