Bradley D. Simon is a white collar criminal defense attorney.
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Simon received a Bachelor of Arts degree, Cum Laude, from Harvard University and a law degree from Georgetown University.
Simon spent 11 years as a federal prosecutor in the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of New York and the Justice Department in Washington D.C. In 1998, he switched to working as a defense attorney and founded Simon & Partners LLP.
Since July 2007, Simon is representing the former New York State Comptroller, Alan Hevesi, in an investigation being conducted by New York State Attorney General, Andrew Cuomo, alleging Hevesi mishandled money from the New York State Pension Fund.[1] Regarding Alan Hevesi’s decision to hire Brad Simon to represent him in the Attorney General’s investigation, The New York Times said [4] “Mr. Hevesi changed lawyers this week and signaled a far more public and combative strategy. His new lawyer, Bradley D. Simon, has represented people caught up in public cases before, including David Chang, a businessman who was a key figure in allegations of improprieties raised about Robert G. Torricelli, the former United States senator from New Jersey.” [2] In a tense exchange between Simon and then Attorney General Cuomo, Simon complained that the Attorney General’s Office was leaking information regarding the investigation. For over three years, Hevesi fought the charges aggressively. In September 2010, however, he decided to give up the fight and plead guilty . According to the New York Times, “ it appears that it was the fate of Mr. Hevesi’s two son’s, Assemblyman Andrew Hevesi and former State Senator Daniel Heveis, that led him to accept the plea deal. [3]
As of July 2008, Brad Simon is representing Morris Talansky, the New York businessman at the center of the corruption case against Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, which led to his expected resignation in September 2008. Simon is representing Talansky in a US investigation that came as a result of incriminating testimony that Talansky gave to Israeli authorities in questioning related to the Prime Minister’s alleged wrongdoing. Talansky has been asked to give his final interview with Israeli authorities on August 31, 2008, but per Simon’s counsel, does not plan to leave the United States.
As a result of Simon’s advice not to return for questioning, the Israeli government is seeking immunity for Talansky in the US.
As of February 2011, the matter is still going.[4] The New York Times noted in a February 28 story, "Mr. Talansky was supposed to return in September so that Mr. Olmert’s lawyers could complete their cross-examination. But Mr. Talansky’s courtroom testimony in Israel resulted in an investigation in the United States, where he is suspected of money laundering, tax evasion and bribery of a foreign official, although he has not been charged.
Mr. Talansky denies all the accusations. But his lawyer, Mr. Simon, has advised him not to return to Israel, fearing that his testimony there could further incriminate him in America.
The United States Justice Department agreed in January to grant Mr. Talansky partial immunity, saying that future testimony he provided in Israel would not be offered as evidence against him in the United States. Yet the Justice Department said the testimony could be used in other ways, including obtaining leads to other evidence, rendering the deal useless in Mr. Simon’s eyes.
In early February, Mr. Simon met with the state prosecutors in Israel to try to agree on terms whereby Mr. Talansky could testify without worsening his situation back home."
Notwithstanding Simon's advice, Talansky returned to Israel on June 28, 2009 to resume testimony. The Jerusalem Post noted in its June 28, 2009 story that "the key witness [Talansky] in the cash envelopes investigation of Olmert told the court that he returned to Israel despite the objections of his American lawyer Bradley Simon. Talansky told the court that Simon had warned that the Americans would 'eat him up' if he continued his pretrial testimony in Israel. From earlier correspondence between Simon and the Israeli authorities, it was clear that the Americans were investigating Talansky on some of the same issues that are under investigation in Israel."
To date,Talanasky has not been charged in either the United States or Israel. The trial of former Prime Minister Olmert continues in Israel.
Since 2009, Brad Simon has been representing Jeffrey Tesler, a London based British Solicitor following his indictment in Houston, Texas for violating the Federal Corrupt Practices Act (“FCPA”). Tesler is charged with paying bribes to Nigerian government officials on behalf of Halliburton Inc. and its then subsidiary, Kellogg Brown Root during the time that former Vice President Dick Cheney was the chief executive officer of Halliburton. The bribes were allegedly paid by Tesler to assist Halliburton and its joint venture partners, obtain more than $6 billion in contracts to build liquefied natural gas facilities on Bonny Island, off the southern coast of Nigeria. A January 20, 2011 Wall Street Journal article quoting Simon as confirming that he is “ in discussion with the Justice Department regarding Tesler’s situation” but declined to elaborate further [5].
Since April 2011, Simon is serving as chief trial counsel for David Rubin, President and Chief Executive Officer of CDR Financial Products Inc., a Beverly Hills financial services company. Rubin, CDR and others were charged in a federal indictment alleging a bid rigging conspiracy in the municipal bond market and other anti-trust violations. It was Rubin’s campaign contributions to New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson which derailed President Obama’s selection of Richardson to be Commerce Secretary in 2009. Rubin’s trial is scheduled to commence in January 2012 [6].
Not to be confused with the chef David Chang (chef)
He has been sought after to represent individuals involved in high profile legal matters such as David Chang – a central figure in the litigation that led to the resignation of the former United States Senator from New Jersey, Robert G. Torricelli.
Commenting on Simon's role in the Torricelli case, The Philadelphia Inquirer said,[7] “He may not have knocked Robert G. Torricelli out of the New Jersey Senate race, but in a postmortem of the senator's dizzying fall, Bradley D. Simon may go down as having given a solid push.” The Inquirer continues: “Simon filed a memo in May with a federal court in Newark, New Jersey, asking for a reduction in Chang's sentence. The real villain, Simon wrote, is Torricelli. The memo details Chang's cash payments to Torricelli, lists the favors Torricelli allegedly gave in return, mentions corroborating witnesses, and accuses Torricelli of having "dodged, weaved and outright lied." Simon's memo led to the release four months later of a government document that helped sink the Torricelli campaign.” [8]
Simon also represented James Marquez in the $450 million dollar collapse of the Bayou Hedge Fund Group, which is among the first ever criminal prosecutions of a hedge fund collapse to date.[9]
Beginning in 2004, Simon represented Frank Borghese, the former Vice President of Symbol Technologies Inc. (acquired by Motorola in 2007) in a case that resulted in a ruling that Borghese, along with one other co-defendant, were barred from a re-trial because of double jeopardy. The New York Law Journal cited this decision as "unprecedented” from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit.[10]
Simon is frequently called upon by the news media to offer commentary on legal issues. The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, National Public Radio and CNBC are among the news outlets that quoted Simon in their coverage of the SEC's April 2010 charges against Goldman Sachs. Simon has also commented on issues ranging from Major League Baseball's steroid investigations to the fall of Bear Sterns, the French trial of former Societe Generale trader Jerome Kerviel and the ethics investiagion of Congrressman Charles Rangel in outlets such as The New York Times, Bloomberg News, Agence France-Presse, the Associated Press, CNN and NBC News. Most recently, he appeared on NBC Nightly News and NBC”s Today Show to discuss developments in Bernie Madoff's $50 billion ponzi scheme.
Simon was profiled in an April 5 New York Law Journal article entitled "Tales From The Front Lines" on successful entrepreneurial lawyers, which highlights some of Simon's most interesting cases since his firm opened in 1998.[12] [4]
Simon is married to Karine Altmann, a French lawyer.