Weingarten Track Record with High-Profile Clients Mixed

The Washington D.C.-based attorney whose hiring prompted shares of Goldman Sachs (NYSE:GS) to slide nearly 5%, has a history of representing big names in business, but a mixed win-loss record.

Reid Weingarten, the attorney retained by Goldman Sachs chief executive Lloyd Blankfein, has a roster full of corporate clients, including Bernard Ebbers, who headed up WorldCom, Richard Causey, the chief accounting officer at Enron, Mark Belnick, former general counsel of Tyco International, and Franklin C. Brown, corporate executive for Rite Aid, among others.

Weingarten, who is a white-collar criminal defense attorney and a partner the Steptoe & Johnson firms Washington office, has a mixed track record with his high-profile clients. Ebbers was convicted of fraud and conspiracy and was sentenced to 25-year in prison, and Causey plead guilty, receiving a 5 to 7-year prison sentence in exchange for testimony against Kenneth Lay and Jeffrey Skilling. Belnick was acquitted by a jury of grand larceny and other charges, and Brown was sentenced to 10 years in prison after he was convicted fraud and conspiracy.

Goldman has not yet acknowledged why Weingarten was retained. In a statement emailed to FOXBusiness.com, Goldman spokesman David Wells wrote:

As is common in such situations, Mr. Blankfein and other individuals who were expected to be interviewed in connection with the Justice Departments inquiry into certain matters raised in the PSI report hired counsel at the outset.

Shares of Goldman Sachs fell $5.25 or 4.70% in Mondays trading session, closing the day at $106.51. The stock was down another 64 cents in after-hours trading.