Ex-Refco Lawyer Collins’s Conviction Thrown Out on Appeal

The fraud conviction of Joseph Collins, Refco Inc.’s former outside lawyer, was reversed by an appeals court that found the trial judge improperly instructed a juror outside the presence of Collins’s lawyers.

Collins, found guilty in 2009 of helping Refco’s former chief executive officer Phillip Bennett and other executives defraud investors of $2.4 billion, is entitled to a new trial, a three-judge panel of the New York-based federal appeals court said in a ruling today. Collins, who is free on bail, was sentenced to seven years in prison.