Two Manhattan attorneys were disbarred yesterday by the Appellate Division, First Department, as a result of felonies connected with separate scandals. Matthew H. Kluger was disbarred after his December 2011 guilty plea to insider trading charges. He was sentenced last year to 12 years in prison in New Jersey federal court (NYLJ, June 6, 2012). Kluger admitted to misusing insider information about corporate deals that he learned while working as an associate at a series of large law firms: Cravath, Swaine & Moore; Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom; Fried, Frank, Harris, Shriver & Jacobson; and Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati. He and two co-conspirators, former stock trader Garrett Bauer and mortgage broker Kenneth Robinson, were found to have netted about $37 million.
Justices Luis Gonzalez (See Profile), David Saxe (See Profile), Leland DeGrasse (See Profile), Helen Freedman (See Profile) and Nelson Roman (See Profile) sat on the panel in Matter of Kluger, M-3721.