Epstein Settlement Claims Involving Attorney Edwards and Rothstein Ponzi Scheme

Thursday, September 12, 2013 Page 5 investors.” Edwards could not have possibly “pumped” the cases to investors when he never participated in any communication with investors. However, Epstein’s “pumping” claims fail for an even more basic reason: Edwards was entitled — indeed ethically obligated as an attorney — to secure the maximum recovery for his clients during the course of his legal representation. As is well known, “[a]s an advocate, a lawyer zealously asserts the client’s position under the rules of the adversary system.” Fla. Rules of Prof. Conduct, Preamble. Edwards therefore was required to pursue (unless otherwise instructed by his clients) a maximum recovery against Epstein. Edwards, therefore, could never be liable for doing something that his ethical duties as an attorney required. In a further effort to harass Edwards, Epstein also filed a bar complaint with the Florida Bar against Edwards. The Florida Bar dismissed the complaint. Another reason that Epstein’s claims that Edwards was “pumping” cases for investors fails is that Edwards filed all three cases almost a year before he was hired by RRA or even knew of Scott Rothstein. Epstein makes allegations that the complaints contained sensational allegations for the purposes of luring investors; however, language in the complaints remained virtually unchanged from the first filing in 2008 and overwhelming evidence supports the conclusion that all of the facts alleged by Edwards in the complaints were true. Epstein ultimately paid to settle all three of the cases Edwards filed against him for more money than he paid to settle any of the other claims against him. At Epstein’s request, the terms of the settlement were kept confidential. Epstein chose to make this payment as the result of a federal court ordered mediation process, which he himself sought (over the objection of Jane Doe, Edwards’ client in federal court) in an effort to resolve the case. Notably, Epstein sought this settlement conference — and ultimately made his payments as a result of that conference - in July 2010, more than seven months after he filed this lawsuit against Edwards. Accordingly, Epstein could not have been the victim of any scheme to “pump” the cases against him, because he never paid to settle the cases until well after Edwards had left RRA, after Edwards had severed all connection with Scott Rothstein (December 2009), and well after the details of Rothstein’s Ponzi scheme had been widely publicized. In addition, if Epstein had thought that there was some improper coercion involved in, for example, Jane Doe’s case, his remedy was to raise the matter before Federal District Court Judge Kenneth A. Marra who was presiding over the matter. Far from raising any such claim, Epstein simply chose to settle that case. He was therefore barred by the doctrine of res judicata from somehow re-litigating what happened in (for example) the Jane Doe case. The doctrine of res judicata makes a judgment on the merits conclusive ‘not only as to every matter which was offered and received to sustain or defeat the claim, but as to every other matter which might with propriety HOUSE_OVERSIGHT_029319