Reading excerpts from a deposition transcript of a famous Ponzi scheme is almost similar to reading a script for the sequel to Wolf of Wall Street. Except in this case, the protagonist is a lawyer, not a stockbroker!
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According the Wall Street Journal’s Law Blog, Scott Rothstein’s Florida law practice went down in a blaze of glory after it was discovered that a $1.2 billion Ponzi scheme was taking place there. In 2009, Rothstein’s scheme came to light as well as a few other illegal activities that took place in the office.
On top of the Ponzi scheme taking place in the office, other illegal activities were happening right under Rothstein’s nose. However, these activities were apparently too illegal for even Rothstein to approve of! He claims people used to smoke marijuana in the office and sometimes even tried to sell it.
Rothstein was very direct about how he tried to discourage the sale of marijuana in the office saying, “I didn’t want to draw attention … because I was running a giant Ponzi scheme out of there.” Selling weed was just one crime he could not tolerate!
So it wasn’t necessarily that he opposed the sale of pot–he just didn’t want to risk drawing attention to the office. Nice.