Florida Lawyer Scott Rothstein's Ponzi Scheme

Scott Rothstein's Ponzi scheme went through a `supersonic' boom in October as he moved more than $100 million out of investor accounts, lawyers say.

BY JAY WEAVER, SCOTT HIAASEN AND AMY SHERMAN

JWEAVER@MIAMIHERALD.COM

Perched in his bunker-like Fort Lauderdale office, attorney Scott Rothstein raided hundreds of millions of dollars from the trust accounts of more than 20 investment groups with a few keystrokes on his computer -- all within the last three months, according to court records and sources familiar with an FBI investigation.

Wielding unusual authority over his clients' bank accounts, Rothstein stole the money held at two Toronto Dominion bank branches while forging financial letters and statements indicating the money was available on deposit when it wasn't, according to a U.S. government court filing and sources.

Rothstein's uncle, Bill ``Brock'' Boockvor -- who traveled with Rothstein in late October to Casablanca as the investment scandal unfolded -- also had access to secret computer passwords for the investors' bank accounts, as did two other employees at Rothstein's now-defunct law firm, Rothstein Rosenfeldt Adler, sources said.

FBI and IRS agents are scrutinizing the trio's potential supporting roles in the massive Ponzi scheme, as they try to untangle Rothstein's financial web.

The agents are focusing on a litany of bank accounts Rothstein used to move money between August and October, as his scheme started to implode.

Investigators believe Rothstein may have hidden money in Venezuela, Switzerland and Morocco, while using dummy corporations in Delaware to conceal his stake in more than $20 million in Broward County real estate and business ventures.

`PRESERVATION'

A federal complaint filed when agents seized Rothstein's assets last week says the attorney used ``multiple bank accounts'' to perpetuate the scheme, and created myriad corporations in Florida and Delaware as a ``wealth preservation mechanism.''

Months before investigators started probing his law firm, Rothstein transferred more than a dozen pricey real-estate parcels worth more than $20 million -- including a home once owned by Miami Dolphins running back Ricky Williams.

Rothstein has not been charged with wrongdoing. He and his attorney, Marc Nurik, declined to comment. Boockvor could not be reached.

Although FBI and IRS agents trace Rothstein's sale of employment-discrimination settlements to 2005, sources say the attorney stole vast sums of investor money during the past year, especially in October. Several investors -- led by Banyon LLC, a Nevada company owned by entrepreneur George Levin -- complained to the U.S. attorney's office and FBI that their scheduled settlement payments had stopped.

The FBI's special agent in charge, John Gillies, said last week the scope of Rothstein's Ponzi scheme may exceed $1 billion, as he urged investment victims to come forward.

Several investors and their lawyers have told The Miami Herald that Rothstein provided them letters purportedly written in recent months by Frank Spinosa, a Toronto Dominion Bank vice president. Spinosa's letters purportedly said that Rothstein's authority over the trust accounts was limited solely to transferring payments directly to the investors -- not to anyone else.

But many investors now believe that Rothstein forged some of the Spinosa letters, which include the banker's signature, phone numbers and e-mail address, sources said.

Investors also told The Miami Herald that Spinosa and Rothstein met with them on multiple occasions, showing them printouts of their account statements to assure them their money was in the Fort Lauderdale branch.