A former U.S. law firm partner who was convicted in a fraud scheme with pharmaceuticals industry executive Martin Shkreli has asked the U.S. Supreme Court to limit prosecutors from tapping his retirement accounts to enforce a $10.4 million restitution order.
Lawyers for Evan Greebel on Wednesday filed a petition at the high court that challenges a ruling against him by the New York-based 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. The appeals court in August said prosecutors had authority to use Greebel’s law firm retirement accounts for garnishment purposes to enforce the crime-victim restitution order under the federal Mandatory Victims Restitution Act.
Greebel’s lawyers contend the appeals court unfairly rejected a provision of the federal Consumer Credit Protection Act that says no more than 25% of a person’s “earnings” can be seized in state and federal garnishment proceedings.
“This case touches on a feature of the human experience that nearly every single American must plan for: retirement,” Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher partner Akiva Shapiro, representing Greebel, said in the court filing on Wednesday.
Shapiro argued the 2nd Circuit decision widened a divide in the courts and executive branch over the definition of “earnings” under the Consumer Credit Protection Act.
A spokesperson for the U.S. attorney’s office in Brooklyn, New York, declined to comment. A representative from the Justice Department in Washington did not immediately respond to a message seeking comment.
Greebel, previously a partner at law firm Katten Muchin Rosenman, was sentenced in 2018 to serve an 18-month prison term for helping Shkreli bilk investors. Greebel had served as outside counsel to Shkreli’s drug company Retrophin Inc.
Shkreli was sentenced to seven years for related charges. In 2015, he drew notoriety for raising the price of the drug Daraprim, used to treat a parasitic infection, to $750 per tablet from $17.50.
In Greebel’s Supreme Court filing, Shapiro said prosecutors’ drive to seize retirement funds marked “a dogged and troubling effort to effectively override the protections that Congress has put in place to protect earnings from garnishment.”
Shapiro declined to comment. Greebel, who has since resigned from the bar, could not immediately be reached for comment.
Federal prosecutors have argued that the Mandatory Victims Restitution Act, and not the consumer protection law, is controlling.
The government has said Greebel is not an “honest debtor” whose retirement accounts would be subject to the consumer protection law but rather “a convicted criminal who owes over $10 million dollars to his victims.”
The case is Greebel v. United States, U.S. Supreme Court, No. to be assigned.
For Greebel: Reed Brodsky and Akiva Shapiro of Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher
For U.S.: Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar
