Maurice “Hank” Greenberg has a new nemesis: His lawyer.
In a bizarre turn of events, Greenberg’s attorney, David Boies, shot down assertions by his client on Friday that a top aide to state Attorney General Eric Schneiderman engaged in witness tampering.
“There was no witness tampering. Zero witness tampering,” Boies told the Fox Business channel.
The controversy stems from the AG office’s decades-old fraud case against Greenberg, the former head of insurance giant AIG. The most serious charges have already been dismissed.
Following a deposition of Warren Buffet in Omaha, Neb. in 2009, Boies gave assistant AG David Ellenhorn, who was prosecuting the civil case against Greenberg, a ride back to New York on his personal jet. Ellenhorn didn’t report the freebie trip from Greenberg’s top legal gun.
Greenberg recently filed a complaint with the state Joint Commission on Public Ethics of alleged ethics violations by the AG’s office in the case – including the plane trip on Air Boies.
Greenberg’s office on Thursday released a statement to The Post from Boies saying a top aide to Schneiderman reached out to him to alter the wording of a statement he was about to issue on the alleged ethics flap. A rep for the AG’s office wanted Boies to say that Ellenhorn did nothing improper by taking the free ride on Air Boies.
“I declined to use the phraseology proposed by the representative of [Schneiderman’s] office for a number of reasons, including that it was my statement, [and] that I did not know whether Mr. Ellenhorn had done something wrong in failing to disclose the plane ride or in failing to make reimbursement,” Boies said in the statement.
As the one who offered and shared the plane ride, Boies is a witness in that probe. It was highly improper — as well as plain odd, given the two sides’ adversarial relationship — for anyone from the AG’s office to try to put words in Boise’s mouth, another Greenberg legal source said.
“This is witness tampering, and the AG damn well had to know that — they’re prosecutors,” said the Greenberg confidante.
But Boies rebutted client Greenberg’s office regarding the witness tampering claim.
“I’ve been very critical of the attorney general’s office. They’ve done a lot wrong things [but] witness tampering isn’t one of them,” Boies told Fox Business.
Boies said he offered Ellenhorn the plane ride because he was “stuck” in Omaha; Ellenhorn didn’t ask.
“He has certain obligations as a public employee maybe to disclose, maybe to compensate. Those are between him and Eric Schneiderman,” Boies said Friday.
Boies insisted that despite the disagreement over the jet controversy his relationship with Greenberg is “fine.”
Schneiderman’s office denied the tampering claim – and pointed to Boies comments on Friday as evidence. The AG also defended the fraud case against Greenberg.
“No one is above the law, no matter how rich or powerful, and that is why three consecutive attorneys general have sought for nearly a decade to hold Hank Greenberg responsible for his role in a massive fraud,” Schneiderman spokesman Matt Mittenthal said in response to Boies’ allegations.
“For just as long, he has tried to evade responsibility through delay and by attacking his prosecutors. This is just the latest blatant effort to distract from the facts of the case, unworthy of a response, other than to say that Attorney General Schneiderman will not be deterred from seeking justice in this matter,” the spokesman said.