A book due out this month about Scott Rothstein’s rise to become one of the most notorious and corrupt attorneys in the country claims he stole $300,000 from a drug-addicted client nearly a decade before the lawyer’s $1.2 billion Ponzi scheme collapsed.

The money possibly was used to start the law firm Rothstein Rosenfeldt Adler in which the disbarred lawyer, now serving a 50-year prison sentence, would run his investment scam based on forged court settlements, author Chuck Malkus said.