The criminal indictments of three former Dewey leaders accused of engineering a massive fraud that helped kill the firm include a wealth of potentially damaging email messages that lawyers for the defendants say have been taken out of context. What follows are some of the most colorful excerpts.

•”We came up with a big one. Reclass disbursements.”—Joel Sanders to Stephen DiCarmine, on or about Dec. 29, 2008, about a fraudulent adjustment.