The Decline of the "Star" of Russian Brooklyn

The owner of Brighton's most famous restaurant, Rasputin, has been arrested in New York. Michael Levitis is suspected of fraud amounting to over two million dollars. According to prosecutors, the lawyer, well-known in the Russian-speaking community, made money on the credit debts of his fellow countrymen. Taped Phone Interview w/ Jeffrey Lichtman re: Mission Debt Settlement , et al Lev Trubkovich: What can you say on the record about this matter? Jeffrey Lichtman: Well, you know, I would say we've known about this investigation for months and we've been cooperating in the sense that we've been responding to subpoenas and have offered to meet with the prosecutors and present evidence that we think would show that there was rampant fraud being committed by a handful of rogue employees and we wanted to be able to prove it and at the same time be able to show that Michael Levitis was not involved in, not only the day-to-day dealings with clients, but not involved in any of this fraud. We never got that chance. The prosecutor never gave us that chance and, you know, here we are. And, some of these employees left and started their own business and were doing the same type of fraud as we speak and are still doing it. So, I suppose there's some advantage to cooperating with the government. LT: Are you preparing any motions in this case? JL: It's too early to tell. We haven't gotten discovery yet. But, there will be motions as we get further into it. LT: So, what are some next steps with your client? JL: Well, we're gonna get the discovery and see the tapes, what they claim they have. We'll see the documents and, you know, we'll be able to know more once we see what they actually have but at this point we're really getting our information together on the rogue employees and are prepared to show it, if not to the prosecutors who wouldn't take it previously, we'll be showing it to a jury. Website: http://www.rtvi.com Facebook page:   / myrtvi   VK page: http://vk.com/myRTVi Twitter account:   / rtvi