Francis Canellas, the finance director of now-defunct Dewey & LeBoeuf, testified Monday that he and Dewey’s former CFO met at the end of 2008 to craft a series of accounting adjustments that would make it appear that the firm could meet agreements with its lenders.
Canellas’ testimony has been hotly anticipated in the month-and-a-half-old criminal trial of the firm’s former executives, which resumed Monday after a weeklong break. New York state prosecutors accuse former Dewey chair Steven Davis, former executive director Stephen DiCarmine and former CFO Joel Sanders of misleading bank lenders and bond investors about the firm’s true finances in a fraudulent and ultimately unsuccessful effort to stave off collapse.
