Michael Potere
You may remember the mystical, magical case of Michael Potere, the former Dentons associate who was fired and allegedly decided to exact his revenge against the firm by threatening to leak sensitive information taken from the email account of the Los Angeles office’s managing director — i.e., information that ranged from emails between partners to the firm’s quarterly financial reports to associate reviews — to Above the Law, unless he was paid $210,000 and given an expensive piece of artwork. Prior to his arrest, Potere reportedly told two partners he felt like “people his age were getting screwed and that he might have a chance to screw back.”
As you may have guessed, Potere screwed himself further and was later arrested and indicted on charges of extortion, attempted extortion affecting interstate commerce, and transmitting threatening communications with intent to extort. Instead of potentially spending more than two decades behind bars, he took a plea deal on a lesser charge. Prosecutors asked that Potere receive a three-month prison sentence, but instead, he received five months in jail with one year of supervised release.
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Things have only gotten worse for Potere since then, as state bar authorities have decided to come for his license to practice law. The Illinois Attorney Registration & Disciplinary Commission claims that Potere’s actions (specifically, that he committed a crime and engaged in conduct involving “dishonesty, fraud, deceit, or misrepresentation”) violated professional conduct rules. Here’s some additional information about the complaint from the American Lawyer:
Dentons, which ultimately fired Potere, assisted an FBI probe into the former associate’s conduct, according to the disciplinary complaint and court records in Potere’s criminal case. While cooperating with the FBI, a pair of unnamed Dentons partners in Los Angeles met with Potere in May 2017 and helped investigators obtain audio and video recordings of the associate admitting to accessing the confidential firm documents, threatening to leak them, and repeating his demands for the money and artwork.
The disciplinary complaint also noted Dentons partners warned Potere that he may incur potential criminal consequences and legal ethics violations based on his conduct. Potere, the complaint said, “responded that he did not care about professional disciplinary issues because he did not plan to practice law again.”
While the ethics complaint doesn’t recommend a specific punishment for Potere, we have a feeling that he won’t have to worry about practicing law again.
Ex-Dentons Associate In Disciplinary Hot Water After Extortion Plot [American Lawyer]
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Staci Zaretsky is a senior editor at Above the Law, where she’s worked since 2011. She’d love to hear from you, so please feel free to email her with any tips, questions, comments, or critiques. You can follow her on Twitter or connect with her on LinkedIn.