Baxter & Baxter, LLP | Portland Oregon Bankruptcy

Associated Press In this courtroom sketch, Solomon Dwek testifies during the trial for suspended Jersey City Deputy Mayor Leona Beldini in federal court in Newark, N.J., on Thursday. Bankrupt New Jersey real estate developer Solomon Dwek, who as an informant helped the Federal Bureau of Investigation arrest 44 public officials and rabbis in a corruption sting last year, took the witness stand to detail how the bribes he used to hook the accused criminals stretch back to his teenage years. Dwek, 37, testified in Newark this week against former Jersey City Deputy Mayor Leona Beldini, who has pleaded not guilty to accepting $20,000 in bribes from Dwek in order to help him win approval for a 750-unit condominium that didn’t exist. The Asbury Park Press reports that Dwek began his life of crime as a student at a New York religious schools for Orthodox Jews. With a failing grade in math that would keep the teen from graduating, Dwek said he took his teacher up on an offer to pay a $50 bribe in order to pass the course and earn his diploma. Fast forward to 1999, when Dwek admitted he used a religious school that his father, a rabbi, founded as a means of laundering money and bribing a group of influential public officials, including “mayors, council persons, [a] sheriff.” Until about 2006, Dwek gave as many as two dozen officials cash and “thousands of dollars” worth of tickets entitling the holders to chances of winning furs, jewelry and other expensive items. Dwek’s bribes won him the officials’ support for his various business endeavors, including help securing zoning approvals. “If I needed assistance with a mayor or public official and they had their hand out, I would gladly bribe them,” Dwek testified. Last October, Dwek pleaded guilty to money laundering and bank fraud, hoping his cooperation with the government would ensure a lighter prison sentence. He currently faces nine to 11 years behind bars. Dwek’s arrest follows several tumultuous years of legal troubles, including an involuntary bankruptcy petition by several creditors including PNC Bank, which Dwek is accused of defrauding out of more than $22 million. Dwek has since placed many of his real-estate businesses into bankruptcy protection.

Former U.S. Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson says he was prepared to support a government deal to prevent the collapse of Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. until he learned the firm’s assets weren’t worth as much as the investment bank said they were, Bloomberg reports . Meanwhile, Barclays Plc is firing back at accusations that it pocketed a secret windfall when it bought Lehman’s core U.S. operations days after it collapsed. Read the Daily Bankruptcy Review story here . Bondholders who stand to lose $362 million in the Herbst Gaming Inc. Chapter 11 restructuring on Thursday appealed a Nevada bankruptcy judge’s approval of Herbst’s reorganization plan, the Las Vegas Sun reports . A Delaware bankruptcy judge on Thursday denied Washington Mutual Inc.’s request to force government regulators and others to turn over documents related to the 2008 collapse of Washington Mutual Bank, according to the Associated Press . The U.S. Securities & Exchange Commission has reached a preliminary deal to settle a civil lawsuit against former Collins & Aikman Corp. Chief Executive David Stockman, a former director and six other former executives, WSJ reports . Gold miner Firstgold Corp. has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection .

The city of El Dorado, Ark., is searching for jobs, a way to pay new police officers and a use for an abandoned chicken plant after the Chapter 11 reorganizations of two of its major employers has cost the town of 20,000 residents more than 1,600 jobs. Earlier this week, Chemtura Corp. sought bankruptcy court permission to idle one of its chemical plants in El Dorado, compounding problems for the city that last year lost its largest employer, Pilgrim’s Pride Corp., when the chicken producer closed a processing plant and hatchery as part of its reorganization. Pilgrim’s Pride, which emerged for Chapter 11 protection late last year, recently turned down an offer to sell the plant, citing the need to reduce the amount of chicken on the market. Some 200 local farmers depended on the plant to buy their poultry. “Pilgrim’s Pride slapped this community in the face,” said El Dorado Mayor Mike Dumas. “For a community this size, it’s been devastating.” The city, known as Arkansas’s “Original Boomtown” for its role in the 1920s oil rush, saw its tax revenue drop by 16% last year and is now bracing to lose more jobs with the closure of the Chemtura facility. In response to falling revenue, the city has frozen hiring of police officers and firefighters, scrapped all plans for new city programs and stepped up efforts to find replacement employers, Dumas said. Pilgrim’s Pride closed its plant in the city as part of its plan to consolidate production facilities. The closure eliminated 1,600 jobs and left El Dorado with a shuttered complex, parts of which Dumas said are “nearly collapsed.” He is upset that Pilgrim’s Pride passed on a sale that could have brought the jobs back. Pilgrim’s Pride spokesman Ray Atkinson said the company “considered all offers” for the plant but found none of them “to be in the best long-term interest of the company.” Chemtura is seeking to idle one of its three plants in the city. The fallout is comparatively smaller, costing 25 full-time employees and an undisclosed number of contractors their jobs. Chemtura spokesman John Gustavsen said shuttering the plant will allow it to allocate resources for the ramping up production of “sustainable” bromine, a fire retardant, at Chemtura’s other locations in the city. Still, he said the company “has no plans” to reopen the idled plant. Dumas said Chemtura hasn’t discussed the plant’s closure with the city, but he said he’s trying to line up new employers. The city worked to attract a 400-person call center that would have done work for Bank of America and other large corporations, but those plans fell through. “With the way the economy is, there has not been much movement,” Dumas said. “When you have community that is not growing, you have to make adjustments.”

Associated Press There may come a time when a lass needs a lawyer, and diamonds are no longer her best friend. What’s a gal to do? Well, she could take comfort in her Russian lynx coat, 500-carat sapphire necklace, six potbellied pigs and $12,000 doll collection – that is, until those assets are subject to a bankruptcy proceeding. We’re not just talking about any gal, but Anna Nicole Smith, the former Playmate model who filed for bankruptcy protection in 1996 following the death of her billionaire husband. Documents obtained by the Associated Press reveal new details about her case, including the assets the late Smith had on hand, the assets she was missing and her confusion about her financial woes. According to the AP, in addition the $43,000-plus fur coat and the six pigs, Smith also possessed a safety box filled with nearly $1 million worth of jewelry as well as her calendar and a bottle of perfume. The documents, which the AP received from the federal government through a Freedom of Information Act request, also show that Smith was missing about $2.7 million in jewelry, including a platinum necklace with 226 diamonds totaling nearly 74 carats. As for Smith herself, the Chapter 11 examiner appointed to probe her financial situation during her bankruptcy proceeding reported that “she did not know why she was in bankruptcy.” And in an interview with Smith at her home, the unidentified official said Smith appeared to be drugged and took pills throughout the meeting. “She could barely walk, her speech was slurred, she had to lay down in a darkened room as the light bothered her and she could not remember what she said from one moment to the next,” the examiner reported. Smith died in February 2007 after an accidental overdose of several medications.

General Motors Co. has reached a deal to sell its Saab brand to Dutch sports-car maker Spyker Cars NV, The Wall Street Journal reports . Just two years after emerging from Chapter 11 protection, Saint Vincent Catholic Medical Centers in New York may be on the brink of a second bankruptcy filing, according to Crain’s New York Business . The Catholic Diocese of Fairbanks, Alaska, is emerging from bankruptcy protection under a plan that will provide about $10 million to sexual abuse victims, the Anchorage Daily News reports . Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. says a bankruptcy judge ruled correctly when he said financial-technology firm Metavante Corp. had to keep making payments on an interest-rate swap after the investment bank tumbled into bankruptcy. Read the Daily Bankruptcy Review story here . Lighting maker Generation Brands has emerged from Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection, the Triangle Business Journal reports . Attorneys for the Washington-Baltimore Newspaper Guild say Tribune Co.’s plan to pay out as much as $45.6 million in executive bonuses would drain more than 10% of the company’s operating cash flow, according to Editor & Publisher . Disbarred Florida lawyer Scott Rothstein is set to plead guilty Wednesday to operating a $1.2 billion Ponzi scheme, the Miami Herald reports .