Gene Cauley, a former high-profile securities litigator who was a name partner in the law firm Cauley Bowman Carney & Williams LLC in Little Rock, Arkansas, was sentenced today to more than seven years in prison, Dow Jones Newswires reports.
As previously discussed here, Cauley pleaded guilty earlier this year to charges related to his failure to “safely hold” $9.3 million in settlement money he was holding for clients. Cauley was one of the lead plaintiffs’ lawyers in a 2004 securities suit against BISYS Group that settled in 2006 for $65.8 million. Cauley was the sole signatory of an account created to hold the BISYS settlement money, the WSJ reported in May, but he could not produce about $9.3 million in settlement funds that was supposed to be distributed to the plaintiffs in April.
At a hearing today, U.S. District Judge Paul A. Crotty (SDNY) ordered that in addition to the 86 months in prison, Cauley must pay an additional $8.8 million in restitution in addition to the $500,000 he has already paid.
