Marc Stuart Dreier -- From Today's Toronto Star

Sunday, December 07, 2008
HOME > GTA > ARTICLE
GTA

Top N.Y. lawyer gets bail here

December 6, 2008 04:12:00
Michele Henry Nick Aveling Staff Reporters

A prominent New York City lawyer was released from custody on $100,000 cash bail yesterday after being charged with impersonating a Toronto lawyer.
Marc Stuart Dreier, 58, who founded Dreier LLP in 1996, a firm with more than 250 lawyers and offices in six U.S. cities, appeared unkempt after three days in custody at Maplehurst Detention Centre in Milton.
He is charged with one count of personation with intent.
Outside a Finch Ave. W. courthouse, Dreier's lawyer, Edward Greenspan, said he was "pleased" about the release of his client but said it wasn't unexpected.
"He's charged with a relatively minor offence under Canadian law," Greenspan said. "The only allegation is that he was impersonating another lawyer."
The bail was arranged through Greenspan's office.
Dreier is accused of impersonating Michael Padfield, a senior legal counsel of investments with the Ontario Teachers' Pension Plan board.
Padfield declined to comment yesterday, but Debra Hanna, OTPP spokesperson, said no pension plan members were involved in any fraudulent behaviour.
During his brief hearing, Dreier paced the length of the prisoner's box, clasping his hands below his waist.
He spoke in a quiet rasp, answering only "yes" when justice of the peace Saverio Nestico asked him if he understood his bail conditions, including not to possess identification that is not his, to reside at an undisclosed Toronto location until he leaves the country, which he must leave on or before tomorrow, and not to associate with certain members of OTPP.
During the brief proceeding, Dreier, a graduate of Harvard Law School and Yale College, stared at his son and brother-in-law. Wearing a blue shirt with no tie, under a black, tailored overcoat, he swept back unruly wisps of salt-and-pepper hair.
Photographed in New York media with notables such as singer Alicia Keys and retired New York Giants football player Michael Strahan, Dreier is a commercial litigator with expertise in intellectual property, according to his firm's website.
Property records show he owns an apartment steps from Central Park in New York City as well as a home in the Hamptons.
In October, Dreier's firm made headlines when it represented late-night talk show host Jay Leno in a dispute regarding the purchase of an antique car.
In May, the firm launched a sports marketing and consulting arm headed by former Major League Baseball executive Don Gibson.
In the last year, Dreier has been forced to pay more than $200,000 in liens by the Internal Revenue Service and New York State.
Greenspan said his client is holding up despite being prohibited by jail guards from making a collect call to family in the United States.
Yet his steeliness dissolved quickly yesterday when police let him free. He rushed into the arms of his slightly taller, red-haired, 20-something son inside the courthouse.
His son interlaced his fingers around his father's waist and the two embraced for minutes, whispering into one another's ears.