Venom flows as lawyers rip Axelrod

Venom flows as lawyers rip Axelrod: "Venom flows as lawyers rip Axelrod
Friday, August 26, 2005
BY MARK MUELLER
Star-Ledger Staff

Liar. Cheat. Scoundrel. Fraud.

For nearly 10 hours yesterday, those words and others like them tumbled from the mouths of lawyers in a Monmouth County courtroom, the bile directed at a white-haired millionaire who once commanded respect in the boardroom and bountiful praise for his philanthropy.

Herbert Axelrod listened to it all without flinching. Then again, perhaps he's grown accustomed to condemnation after more than a year of tumult and imprisonment, a period in which he pleaded guilty to a federal tax fraud count and watched as his celebrated sale of rare violins to the New Jersey Symphony Orchestra came under new scrutiny."