Prominent lawyer dies in yacht disaster

Defense attorney Chris Morvillo, a native of Rockville Centre, and his wife were among the seven victims whose bodies were recovered by Italian authorities after a sudden storm sank his client’s yacht off the coast of Sicily this past week.

Morvillo, 59, a partner with the New York City law firm Clifford Chance, and his wife, Neda, were among the 22 passengers and crew aboard the luxury vessel Bayesian — belonging to British tech mogul Mike Lynch — when it capsized on Aug. 19.

The Bayesian, according to the New York Times, had embarked on a tour of the Gulf of Naples the evening prior, when it was struck by powerful winds and rain just after 4 a.m. The Italian Coast Guard would rescue 15 of the passengers on board, however, Lynch and his 18-year-old daughter, Hannah, were among the seven bodies that were recovered from the wreck in the days that followed.

The Wall Street Journal reported that Morvillo and his wife were invited to join Lynch on the Bayesian after the attorney won Lynch’s acquittal during trial in a major fraud case over the tech company, Autonomy, which Lynch sold to Hewlett Packard for nearly $11 billion in 2011.

“We are completely devastated by the passing of Chris and Neda, and our collective hearts go out to all the families who have also been affected by this senseless tragedy,” the families of Chris and Neda Morvillo said in a statement to the press. “Chris and Neda were each widely respected for their professional successes, Chris as a distinguished attorney and Neda as a skilled jewelry designer, but their true talents were that of mother and father, son and daughter, brother, sister, uncle, aunt and dear friends to so many. Neda and Chris lived their lives as devoted, loving parents who always put their daughters and families first.

“Their passing is a tremendous loss for our family and for the countless people who knew and loved them both,” the statement went on to read. “We extend our deepest gratitude to the Italian rescue services for their unwavering dedication and to Clifford Chance for all the support they have provided. As we grieve this enormous loss, our primary focus remains on Chris and Neda’s daughters and other loved ones, and we respectfully request privacy.”

In a press conference on Saturday, Raffaele Cammarano, the lead prosecutor in the case suggested the passengers who didn’t survive were likely asleep at the time, according  to The Guardian. 

Chris Morvillo’s father, Robert, was a prominent attorney who pioneered the practice of white-collar criminal defense, representing such high-profile clients as Martha Stewart, former Attorney General Eliot Spitzer and former AIG chief executive Maurice R. Greenberg.

Chris Morvillo and his three brothers, Scott, Gregory and Robert, would all follow in their father’s footsteps by becoming lawyers. Chris received a Juris Doctorate from Fordham University School of Law in 1992, and a year later was admitted as an Attorney-at-Law in both New York and Connecticut. He then went to work as an associate litigator with the law firm of Weil, Gotshal and Manges. From 1999 to 2005, he served as an assistant U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York, where he investigated, tried and handled appeals in various criminal cases, including those dealing with healthcare and insurance fraud, money laundering, obstruction of justice, counter-terrorism and narcotics.

Most notably, he assisted in the criminal investigation surrounding the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon.

Morvillo went on to serve as a principal at his father’s law firm — Morvillo, Abramowitz, Grand, Iason and Anello — where he gained an extensive background handling corporate and individual white-collar government investigations, regulatory and civil proceedings and internal investigations.

He joined the law firm of Clifford Chance in 2011, representing defendants accused of insider trading, fraud, trade secret theft and suspected violations of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, the Arms Export Control Act and the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act.

He was also part of a landmark decision in 2018, which set a precedent for Foreign Corrupt Practices Act prosecutions, involving Lawrence Hoskins, a retired British citizen who worked for the French multinational engineering company Alstom.

Morvillo has also recently conducted internal investigations involving possible corporate espionage, violations of the Endangered Species Act, insider trading, and embezzlement.

In 2022, he was ranked among the 500 leading litigators in the country for white-collar and investigation practices by Lawdragon.