Big law’s DLA Piper and Fox Rothschild were sued in a class action alleging they played a role in a $170 million real estate Ponzi that defrauded over 1,100 investors, many of them elderly who sunk in their retirement savings.

The law firms’ alleged involvement was based on the work of attorney Paul Wassgren, a DLA Piper Los Angeles partner formerly at Fox Rothschild. He drafted documents given to prospective EquiAlt investors that he knew contained misleading and deceptive information, according to the federal complaint filed in Tampa.