A former lawyer from California was recently charged with 11 financial crimes associated with a Brookfield law firm.
According to the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ), 52-year-old Matthew Browndorf owned and operated a holding company called Pluto Sama, LLC. Through this company, he owned subsidiary law firms across the country, including a Brookfield law firm previously known as BP Peterman.
According to the DOJ, as CEO of Pluto Sama, Browndorf "was responsible for ensuring that Plutos Sama and BP Peterman appropriately collected and remitted payroll taxes, filed the appropriate payroll tax forms with the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), remitted funds associated with their employee pension benefit plan, and remitted funds associated with their health care benefit program."
Browndorf allegedly unlawfully failed to fulfill these obligations. On Tuesday, United States Attorney Gregory J. Haanstad announced the charges against Browndorf.
He is currently facing a separate federal prosecution in Maryland. In that case, he was charged with stealing more than $3.9 million from clients and employees. He was charged with four counts of wire fraud and four counts of money laundering derived from a scheme to defraud clients and employees of a foreclosure law firm in Baltimore, the DOJ says.
