David Tamman – who was a partner at the Boston-based law firm between 2007 and 2009 – was handed the guilty verdict yesterday in a US District Court. According to a report in the AmLaw Daily web site, the lawyer had primarily targeted Los Angeles’s large Iranian ex-patriot community in the swindle.

Federal investigation

The Ponzi scheme was run through a Tamman client, Beverley Hills-based New Point Financial Services, the founder of which, John Farahi, pleaded guilty to fraud charges five months ago.
Tamman was thrown out of Nixon’s partnership in 2009 when the firm was informed of a Securities and Exchange Commission investigation into New Point. According to the AmLaw Daily report, Tannman still managed to join Miami-based Greenberg Traurig after leaving Nixon, but he was sacked from that firm at the beginning of last year after the partnership learnt of his involvement in the Ponzi scheme.

Solely responsible

The web site report quotes a Nixon Peabody statement, in which the firm claimed that Tamman was ‘solely responsible for the actions that led to [the] guilty verdict. He betrayed our trust, and failed to live up to the ethical standards our firm demands’.
The firm also pointed out that it had co-operated with the federal investigation into the scheme and the prosecution of its former partner. Tamman is expected to be sentenced in February.