US: Antitrust lawyer admits to scheme to defraud New York law firms

An antitrust lawyer pleaded guilty on Monday, November 20, to federal charges that she conspired with her husband to use two bogus vendors to defraud two New York law firms out of US$7.8 million.

Keila Ravelo, who prior to her 2014 arrest had been a partner at law firm Willkie Farr & Gallagher, pleaded guilty in federal court in Newark, New Jersey to conspiracy to commit wire fraud and tax evasion, prosecutors said.

The Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey-resident’s husband, Melvin Feliz, pleaded guilty in 2015. Ravelo, 52, is scheduled to be sentenced on March 5, prosecutors said.

Ravelo’s lawyers, Lawrence Lustberg and Steven Sadow, in a joint statement said that in pleading guilty, she accepted responsibility for failing to expose her husband’s fraud on the law firms and MasterCard Inc, which was also defrauded.

“Instead, and under intense emotional pressure to keep silent, she wrongfully covered up his fraud, and by doing so, allowed it to continue,” her lawyers said.

Prosecutors said Ravelo and Feliz set up two bogus vendors that from 2008 to 2014 billed the two New York law firms where she was a partner, Hunton & Williams and later Willkie, for litigation support services that were never performed.

Many of the payments were authorized by Ravelo, who along with Feliz used the money for personal expenses and investments, including US$250,000 in payments to a jewelry store, prosecutors said.

Ultimately, the two law firms paid the vendors US$7.8 million, prosecutors said. The law firms then in turn billed clients for the litigation support services, according to court papers.

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