October 28, 2008 5:16 PM

Ex-Adams and Reese Partner Has $2 Million Bond Revoked

Posted by Brian Baxter

UPDATE: James Perdigao pled guilty on October 31 to charges that he stole $30 million from his former firm and one of its clients, a casino operator. Perdigao is scheduled for sentencing on February 11.

A U.S. magistrate judge in New Orleans has ordered that James "Jamie" Perdigao, a 46-year-old former Adams and Reese partner charged with bilking nearly $30 million from the firm's client trust account, remain in jail after FBI agents arrested him again on October 15 for breaking into Adams and Reese's computer network to download documents.

Perdigao's parents put up their homes to secure their son's $2 million bond. But Perdigao's most recent arrest coupled with additional evidence that he had lied to law enforcement officials about his primary place of residence, led magistrate judge Louis Moore, Jr., to revoke Perdigao's bond.

Perdigao's most recent arrest means that he will face additional computer hacking charges after several Adams and Reese-owned computers were also discovered to be in his possession. The New Orleans lawyer was initially arrested in September 2004 on mail fraud charges and agreed to cooperate with federal prosecutors.

But the case took a turn for the bizarre when Perdigao claimed that prosecutors were conspiring against him because he possessed politically-sensitive information. After a federal grand jury indicted Perdigao in March 2007 on charges of bank and mail fraud, money laundering, and tax evasion--prosecutors claim that Perdigao moved purloined assets to a Swiss bank account--Perdigao demanded that the court disqualify federal prosecutors in New Orleans from prosecuting his case.

In a sensational RICO complaint filed on May 27 against Adams and Reese and seven partners, Perdigao accused his former firm of being a criminal enterprise. Perdigao's 73-page filing seeks to paint the firm as a hotbed of Cajun corruption, claiming that Adams and Reese hired former public officials to sidestep ethical boundaries and land new clients. According to the civil complaint, which at times reads like a John Grisham novel, Perdigao claims several partners went to prosecutors with concocted criminal charges against him after he refused to participate in such schemes. As to be expected, the firm itself is quick to note that Perdigao isn't exactly a credible source of information.

"Adams and Reese looks forward to Perdigao's upcoming criminal trials and we will continue to cooperate with the U.S. Attorney and the FBI to ensure that justice is done," said managing partner Charles Adams, Jr., in a statement to The Am Law Daily.

But the firm is taking the matter seriously, having retained Williams & Connolly litigation partners Michael Sundermeyer and Joseph Terry, Jr., and Stephen Kupperman and Bailey Smith from New Orleans's Barrasso Usdin Kupperman Freeman & Sarver as counsel in the civil case. (New Orleans solo practitioners Robert Matthews and Pauline Warriner are representing Perdigao in the civil case; solo practitioners William Wessel, Charles Griffin II, and Miami's Joseph Beeler are heading up Perdigao's criminal defense team.)

As for Perdigao, he's now headed back to jail for violating the terms of his bond. In December he'll go to trial on the fraud, money laundering, and tax evasion charges before U.S. district court judge Eldon Fallon. If convicted, he'll have plenty of time to think of new legal conspiracies.

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