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Rothstein assistant pleads guilty to violating election laws

By Palm Beach Business.com

WEST PALM BEACH — Another employee of the once-powerful, now-notorious Fort Lauderdale law firm of Rothstein Rosefeldt & Adler has gone down.

Marybeth Feiss, 42 of Fort Lauderdale,  pleaded guilty on Friday to violating federal election laws and defrauding the government. She faces a maximum of five years in prison when federal Judge Kenneth Marra sentences her on May 4.

Feiss was employed as an administrative assistant at  the Rothstein firm, where part of her duties included helping to organize events, including fundraisers for political candidates and collecting campaign contributions.

To skirt campaign finance laws that set limits on the amounts that donors can contribute to a candidate, firm founder Scott Rothstein enlisted some of the attorneys and administrative personnel of the firm, including Feiss,  to make political contributions. The firm would then reimburse them, which is illegal under federal election laws.

The Rothstein firm collapsed three years ago under the weight of a federal investigation into its activities. Scott Rothstein pleaded guilty to running a billion-dollar Ponzi scheme two years ago and is serving a 50-year sentence in federal prison.