Payments from Milberg Weiss Bershad & Schulman to expert witness John Torkelsen are being examined by federal prosecutors. They are trying to determine whether Milberg Weiss improperly used money recovered in lawsuits to pay Torkelsen for work performed in earlier cases.

Torkelsen is a financial analyst who gave expert witness testimony in shareholder lawsuits filed by Milberg Weiss in the 1980s and 1990s. He was reportedly paid tens of millions of dollars for his testimony.

It has been alleged that Torkelson was paid out of shareholder recoveries for work performed in a separate case. Any such payment made out of shareholder recoveries in an unrelated case would be inappropriate.

Torkelsen’s ex-wife has agreed to provide evidence to the criminal investigators, but the nature of the information is not currently known. The ex-wife pleaded guilty last year to federal charges related to the theft of $1.9 million from a venture capital partnership called Acorn Technology Fund.

Last year, Torkelson himself was convicted of making a false accounting entry into the books of Acorn. It is also alleged that he wrongfully converted $5 million of Acorn’s funds.