Ex-Lehman Director Asks For Drug Program to Avoid Charges

Former Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. Co-Chief Operating Officer Bradley H. Jack, arrested in Connecticut twice in less than a year on charges of prescription forgery, said he is willing to undergo a diversionary program for drug and alcohol treatment to avoid prosecution.

Jack applied for the program at a hearing today in Connecticut Superior Court in Norwalk. Judge Bruce Hudock ordered a doctor’s evaluation to determine if he is eligible for the new program, which the judge said would be “a rare event.”

“If you are successful, your proceedings will be dismissed,” Hudock told Jack at the hearing.

Jack joined New York-based Lehman in 1984 and ran investment banking from 1996 to 2002, when he became co-chief operating officer with Joseph Gregory. In 2004, he was named to the office of the chairman with the responsibility of overseeing all of the firm’s investment-banking relationships. Jack retired in 2005. The company went bankrupt in 2008.

Under the program, a case can be suspended for as long as two years if the court finds a defendant was alcohol- or drug- dependent at the time of the offense, needs and can benefit from treatment, and suspending prosecution would be in the interest of justice, according to the Connecticut Judicial Branch.

“The important thing is to put him on a path without any criminal conviction,” said Robert Golger, Jack’s lawyer, in an interview after the hearing. Suzanne Ieux, a supervisory assistant state’s attorney, declined to comment on the case.

First Arrest

Jack, 53, was arrested in June 2011 on a charge of second- degree forgery for allegedly obtaining forged prescriptions for Ritalin and the painkiller Oxycontin in Fairfield, Connecticut.

In that case, a state judge allowed him to enter an accelerated pretrial rehabilitation program available to first- time offenders charged with non-serious offenses. Last August, a judge said at a hearing that the charges would be dropped if he avoided arrest for a year.

Jack was arrested about seven months after the hearing on charges of second-degree forgery, resulting in the current case. Police alleged he altered a prescription for the drug Vyvanase, which is used to treat attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder.

Jack pleaded not guilty March 21 and is free on bail. The next hearing in the case is Oct. 1, when the judge may rule on his treatment bid.

His application today to enter drug treatment is “just for this case,” Golger said. A court hearing in Jack’s first forgery case is scheduled for Aug. 17 in Bridgeport.

The attorney has said thatJack is in talks with prosecutors that include a possible plea bargain. In Connecticut, forgery is punishable by as long as five years in prison and a $5,000 fine.

The case is Connecticut v. Jack, S20N-CR12-0131552-S, Connecticut Superior Court (Norwalk). The earlier case is Connecticut v. Jack, F02B-CR11-0258280-S, Connecticut Superior Court (Bridgeport).

To contact the reporters on this story: John Dillon in Connecticut Superior Court in Norwalk, Connecticut at j.dillon@snet.net.

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Michael Hytha at mhytha@bloomberg.net.