Dewey & LeBoeuf’s former chief financial officer, Joel Sanders, may have referred in emails to the firm’s “fake income” and requested a “clueless auditor” as the firm was struggling to remain profitable, but that is not evidence of fraud, his lawyer Andrew Frisch told a jury.

On Wednesday morning, Frisch presented the third and final opening statement in defense of the three former leaders of now-defunct Dewey & LeBoeuf, who face charges of fraud, grand larceny and falsifying business records in a case brought by the office of Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance Jr. The other defendants are former chair Steven Davis and former director Stephen DiCarmine.