Judge John Gleeson of the US Eastern District discussed the uses and abuses of Corporate Criminal Law in maintaining corporate integrity. Judge Gleeson was joined by Benton Campbell, Acting Chief of Staff and Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General for the Criminal Division, Jon Polkes, a prominent white collar defense lawyer and partner at Weil Gotshal, Andrew Weissmann, former director of the U.S. Department of Justice’s Enron Task Force, currently a partner with Jenner & Block and Milt Williams, the Time Inc. Compliance Officer.

Background Material

Please click on the links below to view/download background material for Corporate Criminal Responsibility:

• McNulty Memo: Principles of Federal Prosecution of Business Organizations
• Senator Specter's Bill to Provide Appropriate Protection to Attorney-Client Privileged Communications and Attorney Work Product
• Hearing Notice: The McNulty Memorandum's Effect on the Right to Counsel in Corporate Investigations
• Mathis Testimony Concerning the McNulty Memorandum's Effect on the Right to Counsel in Corporate Investigations
• Sabin Testimony
• Sullivan Testimony
• Weissmann Testimony
• White Testimony

Speaker Biography

John Gleeson has been a United States District Judge since 1994, and Adjunct Professor at NYU School of Law. Formerly he was an associate at Cravath, Swaine & Moore, an Assistant United States Attorney in the Eastern District of New York, Chief of Appeals, Chief of Special Prosecutions, Chief of Organized Crime, and Chief of the Criminal Division.

Judge Gleeson has also been an Adjunct Professor at Brooklyn Law School, and John A. Ewald, Jr., Distinguished Visiting Professor of Law at the University of Virginia. He is the author of Federal Criminal Practice: A Second Circuit Handbook, with Gordon Mehler and David C. James, LexisNexis (2002) and numerous law review articles on sentencing and criminal law. Judge Gleeson is a member of the Defenders Services Committee of the Judicial Conference of the United States, the American Law Institute, the American Judicature Society, and the Association of the Bar of the City of New York. He received his undergraduate education from Georgetown University and his law degree from the University of Virginia School of Law.

Benton J. Campbell ("Ben") serves as Acting Chief of Staff and Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General for the Criminal Division. Ben is on detail from the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Eastern District of New York. Ben first joined the Criminal Division front office in 2005 to serve as Counselor responsible for advancing the legislative agenda of the Division and overseeing the Office of Policy and Legislation. Ben also served as Acting Deputy Assistant Attorney General for the Criminal Division during a short time in the summer of 2005.

Ben first joined the Department as an Assistant U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of New York in 1994. There he served as the Deputy Chief of the Violent Enterprises Section, Chief of the Violent Criminal Enterprises Section, and the Deputy Chief of the Criminal Division. In the latter position, Ben managed the activities of more than 100 Assistant U.S. Attorneys handling complex criminal matters spanning the full range of federal crimes. In 2003, Ben was recruited to become a member of the prosecution team assembled to investigate and prosecute the crimes stemming from the collapse of the Enron Corporation. Prior to his federal service, Ben was a litigation associate for Kirkland & Ellis where he represented clients in civil litigation matters. Ben received his Bachelors from Yale University and his law degree from the University of Chicago Law School.

Jonathan D. Polkes is a former federal prosecutor who has conducted over 25 jury trials and argued 12 times before the United States Court of Appeals. He is a partner with Weil Gotshal and a member of the firm's Litigation Management Team, one of six senior partners responsible for Weil Gotshal's 500-lawyer Litigation Department. He principally supervises investigations, regulatory and criminal matters, and securities litigation for clients in the financial services industry and other public companies. He has represented prominent institutional clients and executives in virtually every major legal event to have affected Wall Street and public corporations in recent memory, including: stock option backdating, market timing and late trading, IPO laddering, allegations of conflicts of interest between investment banking and research departments, and the Enron bankruptcy.

Andrew Weissmann is a partner in Jenner & Block's New York office. He is a member of the Firm’s Litigation Department and White Collar Criminal Defense and Counseling Practice. He represents corporations and executives in connection with criminal and civil investigations and compliance matters, including representation before the Department of Justice, the Securities and Exchange Commission, and state and local authorities.

Mr. Weissmann joined Jenner & Block after serving as an Assistant U.S. Attorney with the U.S. Department of Justice. He was selected to serve as Director of the special task force created to investigate the Enron corporate scandal. As Enron Task Force Director, Mr. Weissmann oversaw the prosecution of more than 30 individuals in connection with the company’s collapse, including the indictments of Kenneth Lay, Jeffrey Skilling, and Andrew Fastow. At the Enron Task Force Mr. Weissmann led a team of federal prosecutors, F.B.I. and I.R.S. agents in investigating the largest, most complex corporate fraud in history. Mr. Weissmann closely coordinated his team’s efforts with the leadership of the SEC’s Enforcement Division, and interacted with Congress, the Bankruptcy Examiner, the NASD, Enron’s outside internal investigators, numerous federal and state agencies and the national media.

Milt Williams is the Time Inc. Compliance Officer, and an Associate General Counsel/Litigation Counsel in the Law Department. Milt has been at Time since 1997. Before coming to Time Milt was in private practice and served as Assistant U.S. Attorney in the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York and was an Assistant District Attorney in the New York County District Attorney’s Office. Milt is a graduate of Amherst College and the University of Michigan Law School in Ann Arbor.

As the Time Inc. Compliance Officer, Milt is Chief of the Compliance Office and responsible for ensuring that the company is complying with its Standards of Business Conduct and all Federal and State statutes, including, but not limited to: Sarbanes Oxley, Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, and the rules and regulations promulgated by the Office of Foreign Assets Control. Responsibilities also include training and educating employees worldwide about Time Inc. Standards of Business Conduct and the relevant Federal and State Statutes as well as conducting investigations into alleged violations of the Standards and any Statutes.

As Litigation Counsel, Milt is responsible for handling Commercial, Intellectual Property, Consumer Marketing, Bankruptcy, Class Action, Real Estate, Libel, Products Liability, Construction, Government Relations, and Employment matters.