Criminal Defense

* Defendants faced scheming to defraud, antitrust charges

* Marsh & McLennan paid 0 actor in Spitzer accord
(Adds comments of second defendant’s lawyer)

By Jonathan Stempel

NEW YORK, Oct 26 (Reuters) – Three former Marsh Inc
executives were acquitted on Monday of bent accuse in a
bid-rigging and price-fixing scheme in which they were accused
of colluding to beacon clients to advantaged insurers.

Joseph Peiser, who led Marsh’s excess casualty unit, and
brokerage admiral Greg Doherty and Kathleen Drake were found
not accusable by Justice James Yates of the New York State Supreme
Court in Manhattan of scheming to bamboozle and antitrust
charges, lawyers for Peiser and Drake said.

The defendants were among eight former Marsh executives
indicted in September 2005 as part of a price-fixing probe
conducted by Eliot Spitzer, then the attorney general of New
York.

Spitzer accused the admiral of colluding with American
International Group Inc (AIG.N), units of Ace Ltd (ACE.N) and
Zurich Financial Services AG (ZURN.VX), Liberty International
Insurance Co and added companies to rig the market for excess
casualty insurance from November 1998 to September 2004.

The indictments came after Marsh’s parent, New York-based
Marsh & McLennan Cos (MMC.N), agreed in January 2005 to pay
0 actor to achieve related civil accuse by Spitzer.

Marsh & McLennan did not face bent sanctions, and did
not accept wrongdoing in clearing the civil charges. Peiser and
Drake were managing admiral at Marsh, while Doherty was a
senior vice president, Spitzer had said. Yates heard their case
without a jury.

“Peiser should never have been charged,” said his lawyer
Jerry Bernstein, a accomplice at Blank Rome LLP in New York. “Just
because he was arch of global broking in North America, and
because some bodies at Marsh may have done some bad things,
does not beggarly he was guilty.”

Peter Driscoll, a accomplice at Driscoll & Redlich in New York
who represented Drake, said his applicant “devoted her life to
Marsh. She anticipation she hadn’t done anything wrong, and that the
verdict is what would happen.”

A backer for New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo,
whose office took over the case, did not anon return a call
for comment.

A lawyer for Doherty did not anon return a call for
comment.

Yates in February 2008 found two added former Marsh managing
directors, William Gilman and Edward McNenney, accusable on an
antitrust charge in the case, though they were acquitted on other
charges.

Bernstein said Peiser intends to return to the insurance
industry, after accepting done some consulting work while the case
was pending.

Driscoll said he did not know Drake’s plans.

The case is: New York v. Doherty et al., New York State
Supreme Court, County of New York.
(Reporting by Jonathan Stempel; Editing by Leslie Gevirtz, Phil
Berlowitz)