The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of New Jersey has some interesting and illustrious alumni.

Some are now distinguished federal judges, like Justice Samuel A. Alito, Jr., and Judge Maryanne Trump Barry (3d Cir.). Some are high-ranking officials in state government, like Stuart Rabner, the Attorney General of New Jersey. One works as a legal gossip blogger.

And one former assistant U.S. attorney, if prosecutorial allegations are true, went on to become a pimp. Meet ATL’s Lawyer of the Day: Paul Bergrin.

From the New York Law Journal:

A criminal defense lawyer who worked as a federal and state prosecutor in New Jersey has been indicted for running a Manhattan-based escort service, Manhattan District Attorney Robert M. Morgenthau announced Wednesday.

The lawyer, Paul Bergrin, who has defended soldiers charged with committing abuses while in Iraq, was arraigned Wednesday on a fugitive warrant in Newark, N.J., and bail was set at $500,000.

No plea to the charges was entered, but Bergrin, 51, declined to waive extradition at the proceeding.

Bergrin is a well-known figure within Garden State legal circles. The Newark Star-Ledger accurately describes him as “a brash, high-powered defense attorney who courted controversy.” His clients ranged from defendants in the Abu Ghraib abuse scandal to rap star turned actress Queen Latifah.

We never had any personal dealings with Paul Bergrin when we were in the U.S. Attorney’s Office. Many of our fellow AUSAs did, however, and he didn’t have the best reputation. Bergrin wasn’t viewed as the most trustworthy or upstanding of adversaries. He was the kind of defense lawyer who, if you had a meeting or telephone call with him, you’d want someone else in the meeting or on the call (in case there was ever any dispute over what transpired).

But we had no idea about Bergrin’s little sideline in the procurement business. For the details of this salacious story, keep on reading.