The Perpetrators: Deutsche Bank Execs & Their Attorneys


David Keyko	Winthrop Rutherfurd	John Cryan	Juergen Fitschen	Dr. Paul Achleiter

The Victim: Widow Suzanne McCormick

Felon Deutsche Bank, and its unscrupulous lawyers, conjure up well-deserved images of unbridled greed and corruption and have become synonymous with everything bad in the banking industry. The bank's ingrained culture to operate like a criminal syndicate raises serious doubts as to whether it can ever function as an honest, credible financial institution. Read 10/21/15 letter from Ray Rogers to Deutsche Bank's top executives: Co-Chief Executive Officers John Cryan and Juergen Fitschen, and Dr. Paul Achleiter, Chairman of the Supervisory Board. (Note: Juergen Fitschen stepped down as Co-Executive on 5/19/16 but remains employed at Deutsche Bank)

The media is full of stories about the Germany-based international banking giant paying billions of dollars in fines for manipulation of interest rates, mortgage-backed securities fraud, tax evasion, operating as an urban slumlord, lax oversight and controls over financial reporting and money laundering, lying to regulators, destroying evidence, filing false and misleading reports and more. In June 2015, numerous news outlets reported that the bank is "mired in about 6,000 different litigation cases. Klaus Neiding, spokesperson for private investors in Germany commented that "Deutsche Bank today is a huge law office with banking operations attached."

For these reasons, felon Deutsche Bank should:

become a poster child for pressing the U.S. Department of Labor, the Justice Department and legislators, to deny exemptions that allow felon Deutsche Bank to manage ERISA funds (See Barron's article);
be investigated, along with their law firms by the Justice Department, for embezzlement and other breaches of their fiduciary responsibilities in the administration of estates and trusts;
not be allowed to hold significant equity in casinos having unrestricted gambling licenses, such as Station Casinos in Nevada in which Deutsche Bank holds a 25% interest.

Why Would Anyone Employ Deutsche Bank to Manage Their Estate/Trust?

Deutsche Bank executives are now scheming to become one of the top five "global wealth managers," a big part of which is managing estates of the very wealthy, to make up for heavy bank losses due to hefty civil and criminal penalties and regulatory fines. But Deutsche Bank has a lot of catching up to do as it ranked 12th, based on assets under management at the end of 2014, according to Scorpio Partnership, a London-based consulting firm.

Regrettably, there is a growing "industry" of crooked financial institutions, lawyers and guardians seeking to defraud beneficiaries of the assets of wealthy estates left to them. Deutsche Bank, with its sordid history of criminality, may be a leader in this category of corruption as well, particularly in its operations in the United States.

The Fleecing of Widow Suzanne McCormick, Noted Concert Pianist

Breadwinners who have worked hard, saved and invested wisely and built a sizeable nest egg are emphatically warned by widow Suzanne McCormick, of Dobbs Ferry, NY: Do not entrust your wealth to Deutsche Bank or their attorneys at White & Case or Pillsbury Winthrop!

Mrs. McCormick, a classical concert pianist who performed worldwide in Europe, Russia, Mexico, the United States and elsewhere, has fought a 28-year battle over charges of mismanagement and theft of most of her late husband's estate, once valued at $45-$47 million, which was left to her and other family members. "No one should entrust their assets with Deutsche Bank," says Mrs. McCormick who speaks based upon her experience as chief beneficiary and legal executrix of her husband's once sizeable estate. "I found Deutsche Bank and its predatory lawyers White & Case and Pillsbury Winthrop utterly unethical and corrupt. They have no shame in destroying families and ruining people's lives as they do. I don't want any other widows or families to endure what they have subjected me to!"

Mrs. McCormick's late husband, Edmund J. McCormick, ran a very successful management consulting company, McCormick & Co., which ranked among the top fifty in the country and listed American Express, Ford Motor, First National Bank, Mars Candy and Tiffany's among its clients.

After being aggressively courted by Bankers Trust Company which was later acquired by Deutsche Bank, Mr. McCormick appointed Bankers Trust his estate's Professional Fiduciary/Executor, thus placing his estate in the hands of the bank's trust department and its law firm, White & Case. White & Case, history shows, has played leading and crucial roles in founding and establishing Bankers Trust Company in 1903 and also in Deutsche Bank's acquisition of Bankers Trust Company on June 4, 1999.

Unfortunately, ongoing investigations, including interviews and review of pertinent documents, strongly indicate that Deutsche Bank /Bankers Trust Company and its attorneys at White & Case and Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman (Pillsbury Winthrop) have breached their fiduciary obligations and duties in the central roles they have played in the reckless administering of the McCormick estate. Because of their years of willful misconduct and predatory activities, Mrs. McCormick has suffered great emotional stress and harm to her financial stability.

Patrick Hanley, Mrs. McCormick's assistant, stated:"Deutsche Bank's attorney David Keyko of Pillsbury Winthrop has engaged in deceitful ‘Sharp Practices’ and has not worked in ‘Good Faith’ for some 20 years in attempting to defend the bank in its administration of the McCormick Estate. Meanwhile, Deutsche Bank's attorney Winthrop Rutherfurd of White & Case, which abandoned the Estate in early 1989 to solely represent Bankers Trust Company, continued to fraudulently bill the Estate. Both the Pillsbury Winthrop law firm and White & Case have operated like the Estate is their annuity to milk. They are now trying to steal what little is left."

In the aforementioned October 21, 2015 letter Ray Rogers sent to Deutsche Bank executives, the Bank was asked to respond to 17 probing questions relating to the bank's handling of the McCormick Estate. Attorney David Keyko, on behalf of the bank's executives, refused to answer any of the questions.

The Deck Is Stacked Against Victims of Attorney and Judicial Misconduct

The thought that "White Shoe" law firms operating in New York are above reproach was emphatically dispelled in a letter dated September 13, 2009 from Christine Anderson, former principal attorney in the New York State Departmental Disciplinary Committee (DDC) to U. S. Attorney General Eric Holder and other top Justice Department officials. The DDC's job was suppose to protect the public from attorney misconduct. It is "fundamentally flawed" in that it allows attorneys in the state to police themselves. After discovering and reporting acts of misconduct and corruption at the DDC, she was terminated from her job.

In her letter, she stated: "I discovered and reported that employees of the DDC had engaged in, inter alia, the 'whitewashing' complaints of misconduct leveled against certain 'select' attorneys and law firms. This 'whitewashing' sometimes involved burying cases or destroying evidence, so that certain complaints were inevitably, unavoidably, dismissed. I witnessed this destruction of evidence myself...The detailed testimony presented by innumerable witnesses at the June 8th Senate hearing reveals the manifold reports of corruption and abuse by the State's Disciplinary Committees.... Charges included concealment of evidence, obstruction of justice, extortionate sexual threats by attorneys, pilfering of estates by attorneys, abuse of power, fraud..."

Halliburton Fales 2d, a retired partner of White & Case, has been a member of the DDC since 2003 serving as Special Counsel to the Policy Committee, which reviews proposed admonitions and recommendations to file formal charges. From 1991-1996, Mr. Fales was the Chair of the Departmental Disciplinary Committee. David Keyko was a member of the DDC from 2002-2007. Mrs. McCormick filed three DDC complaints, two of which are not recorded! One of the "missing" complaints included the names of several attorneys including David Keyko and Winthrop Rutherfurd.

Do Surrogate Courts in New York Operate as a Criminal Enterprise?

Judge Janes D. Pagones

A number of surrogate judges in New York's Westchester, Dutchess and Rockland Counties are charged with complicity in judicial misconduct including defrauding Mrs. McCormick and her husband's estate. Two judges whose names repeatedly pop up in discussions of serious judicial misconduct involving estate fraud are Dutchess County Surrogate Court Judge James D. Pagones and former Westchester County Surrogate Court Judge Anthony A. Scarpino. Ironically, Mr. Scarpino is now head of the Estate Practice Group of DelBello Donnellan Weingarten Wise & Wiederkehr, LLP. According to the law firm's website, "Judge Scarpino teaches Surrogate's Practice at Pace Law School and is an Adjunct Professor at Iona, Mercy and Westchester Community College."

Judge Anthony A. Scarpino

Before a New York Senate Judiciary Hearing on June 8, 2009, Pamela Carvel, niece of ice cream magnate Tom Carvel, describes the Surrogate Court system as a "criminal enterprise" and described how politically connected Hudson Valley Bank, with the help of Surrogate Judge Scarpino, allegedly stole Mr. Carvel's estate valued at some $250 million and that her aunt, Mr. Carvel's wife, never received anything after his death. She stated that the bank "paid" Judge Scarpino $100,000 during his election, and gave him an alleged loan of $200,000 and another payment of $100,000 just prior to trials dealing with her uncle's and aunt's estates.

It should be noted that prior to becoming a judge, Mr. Scarpino was an Assistant Vice President with Bankers Trust Company. Thus, he should have disqualified himself from any involvement in matters that involved Bankers Trust Company/Deutsche Bank including adjudicating the McCormick Estate due to his egregious conflict. In November 2015, a criminal complaint was filed against Westchester County Surrogate Court, Judges Pagones and Scarpino and their Chief Clerks. In addition to his role as Dutchess County Surrogate Court Judge, Judge Pagones was made Acting Westchester County Surrogate Court Judge to handle the McCormick Estate!

Please help publicize this website and put an end to the culture of corruption in our banks and judicial system. Please alert others to protect their assets and avoid Deutsche Bank!

Please contact us with your stories if you suspect you have been, or are being defrauded by Deutsche Bank or any of the aforementioned law firms, attorneys or judges.