Late on Friday July 10th 2009, Joseph Collins, a Mayer Brown law partner since 1994, was convicted of securities fraud and other criminal charges in a financial cover-up that brought down the one-time commodity trading giant Refco back in the fall of 2005. A federal jury in New York found Attorney Collins guilty on five of 14 counts, including two counts of wire fraud, two counts of securities fraud and conspiracy, according to the U.S. attorney's office in New York. A mistrial was declared on nine other counts. Collins is scheduled to be sentenced on November 3rd.

The Chicago Tribune has more information on this case here. The verdict ended a trial that lasted nearly two months and took some unexpected turns. In the middle of the trial, the judge presiding over the case became sick and had to be replaced. Apparently, "After the verdict was returned today, two jurors who declined to provide their names told Bloomberg News that the male juror pointed frequently at panel members. The two jurors said deliberations were otherwise uneventful. The jurors said the vote was 11-1 to convict on the remaining nine counts. The holdout was the juror who pointed at the others. That juror wanted a mistrial, they said."

Toomre Capital Markets LLC ("TCM") has previously written a number of blog posts about the Refco Scandal and Mayer Brown's possible involvement. Those posts can be found here and here.