How an ’80s Wall Street hotshot’s antics got him jailed – and how Trump aided his comeback
In ‘Witness to a Prosecution,’ Richard Sandler takes on the legal system that landed his friend Michael Milken in prison and charts his return, which includes a presidential pardon
Reporter at The Times of Israel
With an office that looks out on sprawling Los Angeles, attorney Richard V. Sandler knows the importance of taking a panoramic view of things. That certainly holds true when it comes to his longtime friend, Michael Milken.
In the 1980s, Jewish-American financier Milken was a star on Wall Street through an unconventional approach to the bond market, but his magic unraveled once he became the subject of a criminal investigation led by an ambitious federal prosecutor named Rudolph Giuliani. Portrayed in the media as reflecting ‘80s financial excess, Milken went on trial for securities fraud, with Sandler a key member of his legal team. Milken settled with the government, pleading guilty to six counts of financial misdeeds and accepting a $600 million fine and a 10-year prison sentence.
And then, following his release, the narrative got complicated. In the ensuing decades, Milken experienced a stunning turnaround, rebuilding his personal fortune, spreading his foundation-based philanthropy to causes such as medical research and education, and even securing a pardon from then-US president Donald Trump in 2020. Now Sandler presents the whole panorama in a new book, “Witness to a Prosecution: The Myth of Michael Milken.”
Meanwhile, Milken continues to make an impact on the world stage with the Milken Institute Global Conference. This year, on May 6, it devoted an entire panel to antisemitism in the wake of the October 7 Hamas terror onslaught on Israel and the subsequent war on Hamas, with Sandler as the moderator. Among those who appeared at the conference were former US president Bill Clinton and Elon Musk.
The author’s own resume includes stints as chair of the boards of both the Jewish Federations of North America and the Jewish Federation of Greater Los Angeles. The grandson of a Talmudic scholar, Sandler includes a moral dimension in his book. He views it as a cautionary tale about the prosecutorial system as well as an individual narrative of his friend who ran afoul of it.
As Sandler told The Times of Israel via Zoom, “Anyone who is prominent in some fashion and comes under the attention of an ambitious prosecutor runs the danger of getting caught up in a system — not necessarily because the prosecutor is dishonest, but because the system encourages prosecutors to want to win cases to promote their career, rather than making sure that justice is done. They may believe they are doing the right thing, but they never consider that they might be wrong.”
He adds, “If a guy with the resources and relationships of Michael Milken can be treated unfairly in the system, what happens to the other 99.9% of people who go through the system without those resources?”
Just two Jewish kids from southern CA
Sandler and Milken go back decades. They were two Jewish kids from southern California when they first met through Milken’s younger brother Lowell Milken. In college, they were frat brothers at the University of California, Berkeley, where Sandler was impressed by the elder Milken’s sense of social justice during the civil rights era.
Later, at the firm Drexel Burnham Lambert, Milken became renowned for his use of “junk bonds” — bonds long overlooked by Wall Street because of their low rating on corporate debt. The book argues that by financing such bonds against conventional wisdom, Milken fueled numerous industries and companies, from Ted Turner’s media empire to the present-day Wynn Resorts — even toys, with Barbie maker Mattel one of the beneficiaries. Meanwhile, Milken continued to show a social conscience, launching the Milken Family Foundation in 1982, with Sandler involved from the get-go; he is now its executive vice president, as well as a secretary and trustee.
All the while, trouble was brewing. Sandler rues what he sees as Milken’s miscalculation in not cultivating ties with Wall Street competitors who wanted him out of the picture. They got their wish after one of his clients, arbitrageur Ivan Boesky, was investigated for insider trading by Giuliani and the Securities and Exchange Commission. Boesky pleaded to one count, which involved securities laws. He cooperated with the feds and implicated Milken, who eventually faced a 98-count grand jury indictment on charges ranging from racketeering to mail and wire fraud.
On May 20 of this year, Boesky died at age 87. (Boesky himself got a three-year prison sentence for insider trading, along with a $100 million fine; his New York Times obituary called him an inspiration for a fictional avatar of financial overstepping, Gordon “Greed Is Good” Gekko in the film “Wall Street.”)
Citing prosecutors’ deal with Boesky, Sandler said, “Their incentive was to make a case against Michael Milken. I watched how that system works. I’m not saying the prosecutors didn’t believe in what they were doing. But they never stopped to ask themselves whether they were wrong.”
Sandler provides plenty of you-are-there moments from the government investigation and legal proceedings, including arduous negotiations between Judge Kimba Wood, the prosecutors and the defense. (A later chapter covers the $1.3 billion civil suits, punctuated by the impromptu pulverization of a Perrier bottle during a meeting.) Throughout, Sandler conveys Milken’s determination to spare his brother Lowell from prosecution. The author also explains the decision to forgo a trial and accept a settlement with the government.
By this time, Drexel Burnham Lambert had gone into bankruptcy. Its former star, Milken, pleaded to six separate counts, including securities fraud and conspiracy. The book recounts how his voice wavered while pleading guilty in court on April 24, 1990, and how, nearly six months later, when he was sentenced to 10 years in prison, Milken and his wife Lori Milken reacted with anguish.
No to a jailhouse Seder, but yes to a Trump pardon
In a heartrending moment, jailhouse rules make it all but impossible for Milken to celebrate a Passover Seder with his family. Behind bars, the former Wall Street whiz scrubbed bathrooms, wiped dishes and tutored fellow inmates. He missed out on lifecycle moments, such as his eldest son’s graduation from high school. The author posits that the stresses of the time aggravated Milken’s health, including with regard to a diagnosis of prostate cancer.
“No matter how successful a person is,” Sandler said, “he’s still a human being. He still has a family and children. He cares about such things. I saw him every day while being under criminal investigation… all of a sudden, he goes to prison. It’s so devastating to a person to ever go through this process, let alone having to go to prison afterward.”
Ultimately, there was good news: What was initially a decade-long sentence was reduced to two years. After Milken’s release in 1993, he began a path toward rehabilitating his life.
“He came out more determined to make a difference in the world,” Sandler said. “And even before he went through this, he was extremely active in philanthropy, helping people, young students. He had already done an incredible amount of work in the philanthropic area.”
Wikipedia lists him as among the world’s richest individuals, although Sandler cautions against believing everything that’s in the online encyclopedia.
One goal remained out of reach — a presidential pardon. Sandler details unsuccessful attempts to persuade multiple administrations before succeeding with Trump. Giuliani, who had gone on to become a two-time mayor of New York, eventually advocated for pardoning Milken over the years; he and Milken had bonded over their shared experience with prostate cancer. Ironically, Giuliani himself was recently indicted — for alleged involvement, as an adviser to Trump, in attempting to overturn the 2020 presidential election — and has criticized the prosecutor who indicted him in Georgia, Fani Willis.
In an article about the book, New York Post writer Charles Gasparino asks whether Sandler could have strengthened the narrative by devoting more time to the prosecution’s case.
When asked about that, Sandler told The Times of Israel that “the book tells the truth. It tries to do it in a way that’s balanced, based on facts, not just my opinion. It quotes court documents, prosecutors and a former SEC head. I feel we all learned something from the period.”
“I tried to put three messages out there,” he added. “It can happen to you. If you’re successful and a prosecutor doesn’t like you, and you come under the scrutiny of somebody who wants to use power a certain way, it can be a problem. Second, understand the prosecutorial system is not a fair system.”
At least his third message is more uplifting: “No matter what happens to you in life… know who you are. With the support of people around you, you can still lead a great life and do great things.”
