A federal judge on Monday sentenced Richard Luthmann, the Staten Island attorney who made the cover of The Post in 2015 after he challenged another lawyer to trial by combat, to four years in prison for running a violent scrap metal fraud scheme.
Luthmann, 39, was convicted of wire fraud and extortion for his role in the scheme, in which he and accomplices sold scrap copper to Chinese firms.
To facilitate the scheme, Luthmann and his accomplices paid a blind man who was begging for change and cigarettes outside of Luthmann’s law firm to serve as president of a shell corporation.
At one point, Luthmann’s co-defendants met with one of their business partners at Luthmann’s firm and shook him down for a debt by threatening him with a pistol.
At Luthmann’s first sentencing hearing on Sept. 5, his attorney, Arthur Aidala, told Brooklyn federal Judge Jack Weinstein that Luthmann was using cocaine and drinking heavily while he was running the scheme and that he struggled with undiagnosed mental illness.
Aidala also said that Luthmann had been punished enough by media coverage of his fall from grace by The Post and other outlets.
But talk of Luthmann’s personal demons wasn’t enough to keep him out of prison. In addition to the jail sentence, Weinstein sentenced Luthmann to three years of supervised release and ordered $130,000 in forfeiture.
“Despite the passionate defense of his counsel, this was such a ruthless crime,” Weinstein said.
Prosecutors had called for the judge to sentence Luthmann to at least 57 months in prison.
“With today’s sentence, Luthmann has been held accountable for using his law practice as a launching pad for his schemes to defraud businesses in the United States and abroad, and to extort a former client, all for the purpose of lining his pockets,” US Attorney Richard Donoghue said in a news release.
Aidala had pushed for Luthmann, who has been locked up since June 2018, to walk with time served. He told reporters after the hearing that he was disappointed that his client will do time, but noted that it was a lighter sentence than what the government sought.
“In reality it’s a great outcome, but it’s a tragedy because of Richard Luthmann’s potential,” Aidala said.
Luthmann will get credit for time served and will be free in 20 months, Aidala said. Luthmann is suspended from practicing law and hopes to work in legal research or as a jury consultant after his release.