Marc Frazier Scholl

Marc Frazier Scholl’s career as a public servant in law enforcement spanned nearly four decades, both as a criminal prosecutor with the District Attorney, New York County and as an investigator of public corruption with the Inspector General of the State of New York.  At the District Attorney’s office he was a senior assistant whose career spanned the Appeals, Trial, and Investigation Divisions. His last role there was as Senior Investigative Counsel investigating and prosecuting complex white collar criminal activity, many of national and international note, as well as Counsel to the Investigation Division, providing advice and direction to his colleagues in pursuing investigations. His 35-year career with the office, appearing in federal and state courts, involved primary roles in hundreds of appellate and trial court cases.  For several years, he was also the director of civil litigation there, in which role he supervised and appeared in numerous state and federal civil litigation involving civil rights, tort, habeas corpus, subpoenas, and discovery disputes.

Professional Affiliations

• New York State Bar Association
• New York City Bar Association

• Appeals Bureau, New York County District Attorney’s Office (1978-1983; 1986-1999)
• Trial Division, New York County District Attorney’s Office (1983-1986)
• Director of Civil Litigation Unit, New York County District Attorney’s Office (1986-1999)
• Investigation Division, Senior Investigative Counsel, New York County District Attorney’s Office (1999-2001; 2002-2017)
• Counsel to the Investigation Division, New York County District Attorney’s Office (2010-2017)
• Chief of Investigations, New York City, Inspector General, State of New York (2001-2002)

• Investigated and tried the major executives of a $40 billion-a-year company who stole more than $150 million from a public company. Three officers and directors were convicted, two after trial, including its CEO and CFO who received significant prison sentences and repaid hundreds of millions of dollars in restitution and fines. During trial, the Financial Times reported, using a sports analogy, that Mr. Scholl was the “player that every team covets . . . and . . . has proved himself time and again as the prosecution’s workhorse.”
• Tried four defendants accused of stealing nearly six million dollars from Columbia University, diverting the funds to them through computer fraud. All four were convicted after trial and sentenced to prison terms, and a substantial amount of the stolen funds were recovered and returned.
• Investigated a virtual currency fraud against Southeast Asia-based operators of websites promising significant returns on virtual currency investments. The result was the seizure and closure of over 70 domains used by the operators to defraud their victims.
• Investigated a public company in the video gaming business for falsely dating stock options to increase officer compensation. The illegal technique effectively increased the officers’ compensation by millions of dollars. As a result of the investigation the company’s CEO and its chief legal officer and chief accounting officer were all convicted of crimes and improperly-obtained compensation was repaid to the company. This was the first criminal conviction, nationwide, for a stock backdating scheme.
• Investigated an international securities fraud scheme which hoodwinked victims, primarily Australian and New Zealand citizens, into investing in worthless non-public securities, with the funds being laundered through the New York and the United States. The investigation obtained the return of an American citizen living in Thailand who was prosecuted and sentenced to state prison, and the extradition from Thailand of a Canadian cohort, also convicted and sentenced to state prison.
• Investigated a loan scheme by which the Canadian CEO and CFO of a public company fraudulently induced a Swiss subsidiary of a venerated British bank to lend them tens of millions of dollars. By the end of the investigation the evidence showed that the same CEO and CFO had defrauded investors through false claims inflating the value of the company’s stock, that an American citizen had used off-shore companies to illegally obtain securities at artificially low prices, and that two bank officers had colluded to mislead their superiors in Switzerland to make loans to these bank clients. The Canadian CEO and CFO, the American investor, and the two bank employees were all convicted of their crimes.
• Investigated, working with federal and global law enforcement colleagues, money laundering and fraud at the infamous Bank of Credit and Commerce International, a global institution with a presence in 70 countries. The result of the widely-publicized investigation was criminal convictions for the bank, officers of the bank, and other individuals, as well as $1.6 billion being recovered.
• Investigated, prosecuted, and convicted a security guard company and its principal for stealing more than one million dollars in a sales tax fraud.
• Investigated, prosecuted, and convicted the principals of a fraudulent precious metals investment scheme that victimized over 150 people in the United States and Canada. 
• Investigated, prosecuted, and convicted the chief operating officer of a hedge fund management company for embezzling a quarter million dollars from a fund he managed and utilizing forged documents to cover up the theft.
• Represented the interests of the Manhattan District Attorney in connection to a federal constitutional challenge to applying New York’s assisted suicide statute to physicians, including briefing and arguing the case before the Second Circuit Court of Appeals and counseling the state attorney general who successfully represented the state’s interests before the United States Supreme Court.
• Represented, successfully, a trial prosecutor sued for defamation by a medical examiner, who alleged that the prosecutor had communicated to colleagues that the medical examiner was misstating his credentials. The court granted the prosecutor summary judgment.
• Represented, successfully, the government in connection with several post-conviction proceedings and appeals brought by Black Liberation Army assassins of two New York City police officers. Of note, a media network was granted permission to videotape a multi-day evidentiary hearing in federal court.