And Winners in The Petters Case Are: The Lawyers and The Accountants!
The Minneapolis Star Tribune is reporting that in the 16 months since the Petters was arrested, the lawyers and accountants have billed $12,000,000. Not bad for a few months work.
Apparently Petters criminal defense costs were paid by insurance, (I didn't realize that insurance coverage would cover criminal defense!) and that bill was $3.3 million. The remaining money was spent for accounting and searches in attempts to locate the money stolen by Petters and his crew. According to the article, the money was also used for the defense costs of the officers and others that turned states evidence.
Of the $3.65 Billion Ponzi scheme run by Petters and others, I understand that most of the money is still unaccounted for, so this effort has not been a tremendous success. What has been recovered is used in part to pay for the lawyers and accountants. The bottom line is that the victims are paying for the cost to try to recover what assets can be found. The last I heard, is that Petters is not talking.
