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Criminal Justice

Former BigLaw partner, fen-phen lawyer among those granted commutations by Biden

By Debra Cassens Weiss

January 8, 2025, 8:50 am CST

A former Jenkens & Gilchrist partner and an ex-diet-drug lawyer are among nearly 1,500 people granted commutations by President Joe Biden in December.

All those granted commutations had been placed on home confinement during the COVID-19 pandemic and had “successfully reintegrated into their families and communities,” according to a White House press release.

Law.com has the story on the former Jenkens & Gilchrist partner, Paul Daugerdas, while the Louisville Courier Journal has a report on the ex-diet-drug lawyer, William Gallion.

Daugerdas, who headed the Chicago office of Jenkens & Gilchrist, was convicted in a fraudulent $8 billion tax shelter scheme that led to the 2007 dissolution of his law firm. He was sentenced in June 2014 to 15 years in prison for the scheme in which legal opinion letters backed the phony tax shelters.

Daugerdas was ordered to forfeit $165 million and pay $371 million in restitution, penalties upheld by a federal appeals court in 2022.

Gallion and another lawyer were convicted in April 2009 for cheating clients out of $94.6 million in settlement funds in litigation over the diet drug fen-phen, which was removed from the market after it was linked to heart problems. Gallion was sentenced to 25 years in prison, according to the Louisville Courier Journal.