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Marc Stuart Dreier (born May 12, 1950) is a former American lawyer who was sentenced to 20 years in federal prison in 2009 for committing investment fraud using a Ponzi scheme. He is scheduled to be released from FCI Sandstone on October 26, 2026.
Dreier, who once headed a 250-member law firm, Dreier LLP, on New York's exclusive Park Avenue, was arrested in December, 2008, on charges of swindling hedge funds and investment funds in a four-year-long scheme that unraveled in the financial crisis. He pleaded guilty in May, 2009.
Marc Dreier grew up on the south shore of Long Island in an affluent area known as the Five Towns. His father, a Jewish war refugee from Poland, owned a chain of movie theaters. Dreier presided over the Lawrence High School student council, and graduated "most likely to succeed".
Sheila Gowan, the trustee overseeing the liquidation of the law firm, filed a Chapter 7 involuntary bankruptcy petition for Dreier on January 26, 2009. Wachovia Bank National Association and the bankruptcy estate of 360networks Inc also joined Gowan in the involuntary petition as creditors.
He pleaded guilty in May, 2009. "The one thing Marc Dreier could always do is spin a story, a believable story.". -Vanity Fair Magazine, Bryan Burrough. When he was sentenced, he acknowledged that he had disgraced his former colleagues and the legal profession.
Dreier expanded his offices in the I.M. Pei-designed building at 499 Park Ave. He hired some of the best lawyers in town. He sponsored charity golf tournaments, bought a $10 million Manhattan apartment and acquired a 123-foot yacht with a full-time staff of 10. Things went well for Dreier.
Dreier became desperate as hedge funds requested in-person meetings with his client Sheldon Solow to verify that their funds really would be returned.
The hedge fund agreed to the purchase, but demanded that a representative from OTPP sign the papers in person. The next day, Dreier flew to Toronto to meet the hedge fund representative in the OTPP offices. He first met with an OTPP lawyer and took his business card.
Dreier's 2009 sentencing in Manhattan federal court was punctuated with comparison to the multibillion-dollar Madoff fraud after the government had asked for a 145-year sentence for Dreier.
In November 2008, Dreier grew even more desperate as he began running out of cash. By then, he was the subject of a U.S. Attorney's Office investigation. As things began to unravel, he dipped into his clients’ escrow accounts to repay his debts.
He then asked to use a conference room while waiting for his private jet, and when the hedge fund representative arrived, Dreier quickly ushered him into the conference room, offering the attorney's business card as his own and hurriedly signed the papers. But the hedge fund representative was suspicious.
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