Michael Hild, who was found guilty of fraud in a bond pricing scheme, is seeking acquittal or a new trial at a hearing next month. (BizSense file)
Michael Hild’s bid to overturn his criminal conviction continues – and he’ll get his day in court in the coming weeks.
The embattled Richmond businessman, who was found guilty last April on all counts for his role in a bond pricing scheme that toppled his mortgage company Live Well Financial, will argue his case for either an acquittal or new trial at a hearing set for March 8.
That’s according to U.S. District Judge Ronnie Abrams, whose order on the matter on Feb. 3 ended nearly six months of relative quiet in the case.
Hild has remained free for nearly nine months since a jury found him guilty of securities fraud, mail fraud and bank fraud after a three-week trial in Manhattan federal court.
Hild, who had pleaded not guilty, soon after filed a petition for a post-conviction acquittal, or at the very least a new trial, arguing that his previous legal team was wrongfully ineffective during the trial due in part to allegedly undisclosed conflicts of interest.
He claims his previous attorney, Benjamin Dusing, was secretly litigating multiple custody cases against two mothers of his children back in Kentucky leading up to and during Hild’s trial.
Hild claims the Kentucky cases were a major distraction for Dusing and that Dusing hid the matters from his client for fear of being fired or losing the ability to use the Hild case to delay the cases in Kentucky.
Armed with a new attorney, Hild has argued the right to a conflict-free counsel is part of the Sixth Amendment of the Constitution. The move has also allowed him to delay sentencing in the interim.
Hild and Dusing are childhood friends who grew up together in Kentucky. Hild initially had retained a team from powerhouse law firm Murphy & McGonigle for representation in the criminal case. He eventually made the switch to Dusing, who has his own firm in Fort Wright, Kentucky and is a former federal prosecutor.
Federal prosecutors have said Hild’s attempts for acquittal or a new trial should be denied, while Dusing submitted a lengthy affidavit arguing that his representation of Hild was sound.
Attempting to add fuel to his argument, Hild’s current attorney, Brian Jacobs of New York law firm Morvillo Abramowitz Grand Iason & Anello, alerted the judge in December to an odd episode that landed Dusing in the news in Kentucky and under scrutiny from the Kentucky Bar Association.
News reports in the Bluegrass State discovered a video posted online by Dusing in which he made threats to certain attorneys working his custody cases.
Jacobs, in his letter to Judge Abrams, cited the news reports, stating that Dusing was reprimanded by a judge in the matter and was under inquiry by the state bar association there.
Dusing, undeterred, has since announced publicly that he’s seeking to run as a family court judge.
Should his efforts fail, Hild faces a combined maximum of 115 years in prison, though his sentence will surely be lower. He also faces a maximum fine of $5 million. Judge Abrams will ultimately decide his punishment.
The government claimed Hild helped mastermind a scheme to defraud the company’s lenders by falsely inflating the value of a portfolio of reverse mortgage bonds, in order to induce the lenders into loaning more money to Live Well than they otherwise would have.
He was arrested on the charges in 2019, which coincided with the shuttering of the once-fast-growing Live Well. Former Live Well CFO Eric Rohr and head bond trader Darren Stumberger pleaded guilty to similar charges and cooperated with the government as key witnesses in the Hild trial. They now await sentencing.
Hild also has other legal issues to contend with as part of Live Well’s ongoing bankruptcy case. He and his wife are expected to file their response this week to the bankruptcy trustee’s attempts to recoup $110 million in damages from the couple and their various Richmond-area business entities.
Trustee David Carickhoff is looking to place much of the blame for Live Well’s demise on the Hilds, claiming Michael looted the company and funneled much of the fruits of the fraud to Laura.
Other Live Well insiders also are under similar scrutiny from the Carickhoff. Those cases also are still pending.
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