For more than a decade, Wang’s lawyers attacked, threatened and sued not just me and my charity but also my co-workers, my directors, our vendors, and our partners. After we were forced into bankruptcy, they threatened our lawyers too.
Our bankruptcy firm, Carter Ledyard & Milburn is a 165-year-old law firm that was recommended to us because one of their partners, Pamela Mann, is a non-profit expert and used to be the Chief of the New York State Attorney General’s Charity Bureau. She and her colleagues worked tirelessly to help us try and reorganize under Chapter 11. But after two years of work, when it came time for them to be paid, and they submitted their $2+ million invoice to the bankruptcy court for approval Wang’s lawyers threatened to sue them. Just as they made up false allegations against us for so many years, Wang’s lawyers fabricated false allegations against CLM.
To reach an agreement and avoid litigation, CLM agreed to discount their fees by millions of dollars. The judge and everyone else approved it but Wang’s lawyers refused. They told CLM that they would let them walk away with nothing. But if they tried to take one dollar, they would sue them and destroy them. So CLM walked away with nothing.
I’m sure CLM would have prevailed in litigation, but it would have taken years and cost a lot of money. This is yet another example of ruthless and vicious Wang’s lawyers could be. And how difficult it had been for us for almost 10 years of being threatened and sued again and again by them. If a 165-year-old law firm couldn’t defend themselves against Wang’s lawyers, what chance did we ever have?