Prominent NY lawyer Dreier sentenced to 20 years

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Marc Dreier, a high-profile New York lawyer who admitted to a $400 million investment fund fraud that unraveled at the same time as Bernard Madoff's huge swindle, was sentenced to 20 years imprisonment on Monday.

The better-known Madoff's multibillion-dollar fraud was much larger than Dreier's scheme, but U.S. prosecutors had requested 145 years for the Harvard and Yale educated lawyer compared with the 150-year term imposed on the disgraced financier last month.

U.S. District Judge Jed Rakoff, before handing down the sentence in Manhattan federal court, said Dreier "is getting no sympathy from this court but he is no Mr. Madoff under any analysis."

Dreier, 59, pleaded guilty in May to securities fraud, money laundering and other charges. He once ran a 250-member New York law firm Dreier LLP and acknowledged in court that he had dishonored the legal profession.

Receivers working to recover assets and money for fraud victims said Dreier had cooperated with them.

"I am sorry, deeply sorry for the harm, the sadness that I have caused so many people," the gray-haired Dreier, dressed in a dark business suit, said in court before he was sentenced. "An apology doesn't fix anything, doesn't give anyone's money back and doesn't give anyone their job back."

The case is USA v Dreier 09-00085 in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York (Manhattan)

(Reporting by Grant McCool; editing by Carol Bishopric)