John Hillebrecht, the former chief of the Complex Frauds Unit in the Southern District of New York U.S. Attorney’s office, has joined DLA Piper, the firm announced Wednesday.
Hillebrecht, who left the U.S. Attorney’s office after 15 years last month, will focus on white collar, complex commercial and securities litigation matters in the firm’s New York office. Hillebrecht previously served as Acting Chief of the Complex Frauds Unit and Deputy Chief of the Organized Crime and Terrorism Unit.
After graduating from Stanford Law School in 1989, Hillebrecht clerked for U.S. Appeals Judge Irving R. Kaufman of the 2nd Circuit and worked as an associate at Cravath, Swaine & Moore LLP in New York.
In the late 1990s, Hillebrecht led the investigation that led to the indictment of more than 50 members of New Jersey’s DeCavalcante crime family, the models for the mobsters depicted on HBO’s television show “The Sopranos.” The indictment—and subsequent guilty pleas from all but a handful of the defendants—led to the crime family’s downfall.
To an extent, Hillebrecht’s role on the KPMG case defines his tenure at the Southern District. Hillebrecht was brought in after U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan dismissed charges against 13 KPMG defendants on the grounds that the government had violated their rights by pressuring the company into not paying their legal fees. He petitioned the 2nd Circuit to reverse the dismissal — Kaplan’s decision was upheld — and then led the successful prosecution of the four remaining defendants on tax evasion charges. Although he won three convictions, the trial was nearly lost when a key government witness testifying against former KPMG tax partner David Greenberg, who was eventually acquitted of all charges, “went south on the stand,” according to a former Southern District prosecutor familiar with the case.
“John threw him out, admitted he’d blown up, and in doing so saved the case,” the ex-prosecutor says. “Hillebrecht was put on the case when everybody knew it was a mess. Even when the witness blew up he managed to salvage it. Does that make it a big success for government? No. But I don’t think that felony convictions for tax evasion against a lawyer and a bunch of accountants is small potatoes.”
Jesse Sunenblick contributed to this article.
