loading . . . The Wild, Strange Case Todd Blanche Canât Seem to Escape Today, heâs Donald Trumpâs man atop the Justice Department, the most powerful prosecutor in the entire nation, using every ounce of his power to bend the legal system to the White Houseâs will, and making priority of such legal urgencies as doling out $1.8 billion in a compensation fund that could go to the January 6 rioters. But not even five years ago, Todd Blanche was taking on new clients, in Great Neck, Long Island, in the office of a local ophthalmologist. The doctor, Idida Kaplan, was mother to a pair of baby-faced twin boychiks in their early 30s, Adam and Daniel. They had been working as financial advisers, but allegations of fraud were starting to mount. The Manhattan district attorney might even be sniffing around, they worried. They needed a good lawyer, preferably one for a good price. Enter Blanche, a white-collar defense attorney with New York Cityâs oldest law firm, Cadwalader, Wickersham, & Taft. At Ididaâs ophthalmology practice on Northern Boulevard, in a black-glass suburban office building, Blanche assured the Kaplans that they âwould not be paying Cadwalader prices,â the Kaplans would later contend in a lawsuit against Blanche and his firm. âBlanche also advised the Kaplans that he did not want to make money on the representation, the implication being that while there would be some cost involved, it would be at a steep discount,â they added. (In a counterclaim, Caldwalader acknowledged it had said it would discount its rates, though not by how much.) Fast-forward almost a year, to June 20, 2022. Cadwalader sent over its first billâfor $677,925.32. And that was just the start, according to the court papers. By November, the Kaplans had paid Blancheâs firm $1.65 million, and Cadwalader said they owed even more. On November 19, 2022, at 5:27 a.m., those court papers allege, Blanche emailed the Kaplans: âI am forced to instruct my team to stop work on this matter.â That bill needed to be paid. Blanche may now be the acting attorney general of the United States of Americaâafter nearly two years as Trumpâs personal attorney and another as deputy AGâbut heâs still contesting the lawsuit from his former clients from Great Neck. Theyâre accusing him of malpractice and forgery. Thus began a legal battle between the Kaplans and Blanche that dragged on and on and onâand continues to this day, even as Blanche now finds himself on the executive floor of the Robert F. Kennedy Department of Justice Building in Washington, DC. Blanche may now be the acting attorney general of the United States of Americaâafter nearly two years as Trumpâs personal attorney and another as deputy AGâbut heâs still contesting the lawsuit from his former clients from Great Neck. Theyâre accusing him of malpractice and forgery. (In an email sent after publication, a Justice Department spokesperson said this story is from the âperspective of convicted fraudstersâ and called Vanity Fair a âgossip rag.â) The Kaplan twins had an early brush with the American legal system while still in college. Their dad, Stewart, an allergist, sued the University of Rochester for $200,000 when the boys werenât given summa cum laude status, even though they had near-perfect GPAs, as The New York Post reported in a story headlined ââFlawâ Degree.â The university reportedly adjusted the diplomas when it was informed of the discrepancy. Despite the alleged âmental anguish, psychological and emotional trauma,â according to the Post, Adam and Daniel managed to move ahead with their careers. By 2016, theyâd landed jobs at Morgan Stanley. The following year, according to the Kaplansâs suit against Blanche, they were the subject of an internal investigation at Morgan Stanley into allegations that they made unauthorized changes to client documents. The twins denied wrongdoing, lawyered up, then hired a legal malpractice specialist, Daniel Abrams, to sue the Kaplansâ own attorneys, whom they allegedly refused to pay. (The Kaplans lost on summary judgment, and the suit was eventually settled.) The brothers continued to bounce around the finance world, passing through Merrill Lynch for a spell, then an outfit called IHT Wealth Management. They picked up clients along the way, many of them family friends and neighbors, some of them quite old and infirm. âClient F wrote four checks payable to Daniel Kaplan, which Daniel was to use for home repair projects for Client Fâs elderly mother,â reads a March 2023 complaint from the Securities and Exchange Commission; except Daniel allegedly âchanged the amounts written on the checks and kept the proceeds.â The Kaplans had claimed to at least one client they got their MBAs from Harvard, according to federal investigators; they in fact took some classes at the extension program. In a separate civil case, another client complained that the twins forged their signatures on documents. (A judge sided with the Kaplans, ordered their client to pay them $245, and dismissed the case last year.) More seriously, the SEC complaint alleged that the Kaplan brothers skimmed about half a million dollars in extra fees from some of their clients and, through various schemes, drained another $4.5 million from the accounts of others. Adam, for his part, allegedly withdrew $156,000 in unauthorized wires from âClient Eâs line of credit account,â including â$58,000 to a high-end watch retailer,â â$30,000 to a match-making service,â and $68,000 to a luxury accessories dealer, apparently for a HermĂšs Kelly II mini bubblegum ostrich handbag with palladium hardware. (One of Adamâs criminal defense lawyers later told the jury that as long as they paid back what they borrowed, it âdidnât matterâ what the twins âdid with the money. They could use it to pay expenses. They could use it to fix their roof. They could use it to buy handbags.â) Todd Blanche appears in court for the second day of his criminal trial at Manhattan Criminal Court.Pool/Getty Images. But even as the federal government accused the brothers of being grifters, they presented themselves in state court as victimsâof the Cadwalader firm and of Todd Blanche, who had by April of 2023 started his own practice and was representing a certain former reality show host in his many legal affairs. The Kaplans once again turned to Abrams, the malpractice specialist, to press their case against Blanche and Cadwalader. In a suit filed on behalf of the Kaplans, Abrams accused the law firm of withholding evidence that may have aided in the brothersâ defense against the feds. (Exactly what this evidence was, Abrams, who has continued to represent the twins, wouldnât tell me.) The twins claimed in the malpractice suit that Blanche forged their signatures on an engagement letter. (To back up their story, they enlisted a handwriting expert who claimed that the signatures were forgeries.) âIf those allegations are proven, and we have a good faith belief that they will be, you know, heâs not an ethical guy,â Abrams later said of Blanche. The Kaplans also claimed in the June 2023 lawsuit that Blanche had hoodwinked them regarding Cadwaladerâs fees, which they alleged amounted to 2,475 billable hours at about $1,000 per hour. Blanche and Cadwalader, whose attorneys did not respond to a request to comment for this story, denied all of the allegations; they also later countersued the Kaplans, alleging $1,208,403.76 in unpaid bills. Itâs a lot of money, but not nearly as much as the pair of $2.5 million bonds the Kaplans were forced to put up in July of 2023. Thatâs when a federal grand jury in the Eastern District of New York returned an 16-count money laundering and wire fraud indictment against Adam and Daniel. The brothers had to know this was coming. Their attorneys at Cadwalader discussed the Kaplansâ case with the local US attorneyâs office almost a year earlier, according to court transcripts. And yet, according to an affidavit filed by FBI special agent John M. Iannuzzi, Adam Kaplan apparently couldnât help himself. He linked up with a serial grifter by the name of Ronnie Roth, who previously had been convicted bank fraud, grand larceny, and other financial crimes in Texas, Missouri, and New York, and who also had family in the flower business. Together, they launched an entirely different venture, according to Rothâs testimony. He eventually cooperated with the FBI investigation of the Kaplans. Roth and Adam persuaded Adamâs clients to invest in a wholesale flower-buying business, promising double-digit returns after the inevitable Valentineâs and Motherâs Day rushes. One small problem: There were no flowers. The funds were being used, in part, âto pay back individuals that complained that they had not yet been repaidâ by Adam, according to Iannuzzi, who labeled the whole operation a âPonzi schemeâ in his affidavit. Blanche, meanwhile, has pushed prosecutions of the presidentâs political foes, from former FBI chief James Comey to the venerable civil rights organization the Southern Poverty Law Center. (âToday is just the beginning,â Blanche posted after the SPLC indictment. âStay tuned.â) Roth testified he could help Adam in other ways. He could derail the federal investigation into the Kaplan brothersâby scaring the shit out of potential witnesses. âI told Adam that I was connected with a guy by the name of Junior, who was a mobster,â Roth testified. âJunior Gotti.â And that wasnât Rothâs only dangerous friend. He also claimed to know a former âIsraeli Mossad agentâ who went by the moniker âGhost.â Roth testified that, with Ghostâs help and at Adamâs encouragement, he sent threatening messages to one of Adamâs relatives. According to Roth, the relative had been complaining to the twinsâ dad about money heâd lost with Adam, and was threatening to talk to the FBI. Roth claimed he also went after Adamâs ex-girlfriend when she wouldnât return expensive gifts Adam had bought for her. Roth would text her 40 times per day for eight straight hours, he testified, with the same skull-and-crossbones image. He said heâd do the same to the Kaplan relative, even more often, with three words: âStop asking questions.â Adam also gave Roth $75,000, Roth continued, in part, so Ghost could bribe Justice Department officials. He also testified having made a payment of $9,500 in cash delivered to one secretary in a box for chocolates. None of it worked. There was a simple reason why, as Rothâs testimony later revealed: Neither Ghost, nor his pal Junior, nor âChuckââRothâs specialist in fixing online reputations and gaming Google resultsâwere real. Adam, the alleged scammer, had allegedly been scammed. As Roth detailed for prosecutors: Q: These were imaginary people. Q: You were just making them up to see if you could get money from Adam Kaplan. In February of 2025, Adam was hit with additional charges including attempted obstruction of justice. At the Kaplansâ trial last fall, Adamâs lawyer told them not to believe the testimony of Roth, an admitted liar, while Danielâs lawyer tried to distance him from his twin. âEvery time you hear someone lump Daniel in with Adam, question it. Ask yourself: Does that person even know which brother they are referring to? Do they have any idea? Can they even tell Adam and Daniel apart?â The trial lasted eight weeks. The court heard from a legally blind woman with a husband near death; Adam and Daniel convinced her to take out a loan worth tens of thousands of dollars, then they pocketed the cash. The court heard from a woman whose aunt, a former teacher diagnosed with dementia, had been a client of Adamâs for years (they even lived in the same Upper East Side apartment building). The niece wore an FBI wire when she took Adam out to a coffee shop and asked about the money missing from her auntâs brokerage account, which she said totaled about $427,000. Blanche has defended his decision not to further investigate those who, like the president, were tight with the worldâs most notorious sex trafficker. âIt isnât a crime to party with Mr. Epstein,â Blanche recently told Fox News. Adam was found guilty on all of the charges he faced; Daniel, all but twoâmoney laundering counts tied to a couple of luxury purchases. Adam is held today in the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn, the same federal jail holding NicolĂĄs Maduro and Luigi Mangione. Daniel is free pending further proceedings. Blanche, meanwhile, has pushed prosecutions of the presidentâs political foes, from former FBI chief James Comey to the venerable civil rights organization the Southern Poverty Law Center. (âToday is just the beginning,â Blanche posted after the SPLC indictment. âStay tuned.â) He has also defended his decision not to further investigate those who, like the president, were tight with the worldâs most notorious sex trafficker. âIt isnât a crime to party with Mr. Epstein,â Blanche recently told Fox News. Along with his predecessor Pam Bondi, Blanche oversaw a Justice Department that radically de-emphasized the prosecution of white-collar crimes, like the kind the Kaplan twins were convicted of. According to The New York Times, the DOJ is about to drop its highest-profile fraud case, against Indiaâs richest man. The shift came, the Times noted, after he hired one of Trumpâs personal attorneys. (A DOJ spokesperson wrote in an email after publication that the characterization of Blanche's comments on Epstein and the Departmentâs prioritization of white-collar crime "are completely false.â) The Kaplansâ malpractice case against Blanche will continue, at least until the twinsâ sentencing, expected later this year. In the meantime, an online campaign to rehabilitate the brothersâ reputations appears to be underway, with a website, AdamAndDanielKaplanGiving.com, highlighting their unspecified âsupportâ of Harvard Hillel, and a Wikipedia-esque page for Adam noting his consulting âon a range of topics including career development, networking, insurance policies, and life coaching.â I called back Abrams, the Kaplansâ attorney in their lawsuit against Blanche, to find out what this all was. He seemed to be taken aback. âI literally know nothing about it. What youâre talking about, like, I just donât know anything about it,â Abrams told me. This story has been updated. https://www.vanityfair.com/news/story/todd-blanche-wild-case?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=newsletter&utm_campaign=bluesky
