Joshua Marshall on Karl Rove’s attorney:
Yep, you heard that right. Luskin got paid more than $500,000 of his attorney’s fees in gold bars from his client who was trying to appeal his conviction on charges that he laundered drug money through precious metals dealers. Who woulda thought that was drug money?
Luskin insisted that he “never have, and never would, knowingly accept a fee that was the proceeds of illegal activities.”
But when federal prosecutors finally got a chance to depose Luskin and Saccoccia’s other lawyers, they found that their lawyers’ fees had come in forms “such as gold bars, cash that was dropped off at hotels and trunks of cars, and money transfers from Swiss bank accounts.”
Eventually, in 1998, Luskin came to a settlement with the government in which he agreed to cough up $245,000 of the money he’d gotten from Saccoccia.