US News

‘FRAUDER’ IN LAW

A hotshot Manhattan lawyer suspected in a massive scam in Canada was nabbed stepping off a plane at La Guardia Airport – and feds slapped a new $100-million-plus fraud rap against him yesterday.

Litigator Marc Dreier – already charged in an alleged $45 million scheme in Canada – appeared in Manhattan federal court to face new charges that he duped two local hedge funds into buying tens of millions of dollars worth of bogus promissory notes.

The Securities and Exchange Commission filed a parallel suit claiming Dreier raised at least $113 million marketing the phony notes. And Wachovia Bank sued Dreier, claiming his law firm defaulted on more than $12.6 million in loans.

Dreier was charged last week in Toronto with impersonating a Canadian pension-fund lawyer in an apparently related piece of the con.

Sources said Dreier was trying to secure $45 million from Fortress Investment Group, a New York asset-management firm, by pretending to be a lawyer for Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan.

Last Tuesday, Dreier arranged for a meeting in Toronto with the pension group – but stayed after it ended, coming across in-house pension lawyer Michael Padfield and getting his business card.

Sources said he then waited for Howard Steinberg, a Fortress exec who thought he was meeting Padfield.

Dreier took Steinberg to a conference room, allegedly handed him the Padfield business card and began talking about the proposed deal.

Steinberg got suspicious and the ruse unraveled, the sources said.

Dreier apparently was aware law enforcement would be waiting for him at La Guardia when he returned Sunday night.

“I knew before he went back to the States, as did he,” his Canadian lawyer, Edward Greenspan, told The Post.

Dreier was ordered held without bail pending a hearing Thursday.

According to the new federal complaint, Dreier smooth-talked his way into a real-estate developer’s Manhattan offices in October and took over its conference room as part of his elaborate con.

The alleged plot involved bogus notes supposedly issued by well-known New York real-estate developer Sheldon Solow, an ex-client.

Dreier allegedly offered to sell the notes at a large discount to his hedge-fund victims, claiming current investors were liquidating to cover market losses.

He reaped $100 million from a New York City hedge fund and $13.5 million from a fund in Connecticut, authorities said.

In taped telephone calls, Dreier allegedly confessed to fabricating the notes, saying he was “ashamed” of himself, according to the feds.

Dreier’s legal mess left his Park Avenue firm in a tailspin, with partners deserting left and right.

His New York lawyer, Gerald Shargel, said, “Given the reaction of the partners, I don’t think there’s going to be any firm to run.”

bruce.golding@nypost.com