Scott Graham
The Recorder
A San Diego magistrate judge said a LeClairRyan partner gave false assurances that sought-after documents didn't exist...
Showing posts with label San Diego. Show all posts
Showing posts with label San Diego. Show all posts
Friday, August 14, 2015
Federal Judge in San Diego Slams Defense Lawyer for Discovery Breaches
Scott Graham
The Recorder
Friday, January 17, 2014
San Diego City Attorney Jan Goldsmith accused police officer's victim of panty bribery
Oh, dear. Former Judge and current San Diego City Attorney Jan Goldsmith got caught in the act of being--well--a normal lawyer. The Bar Association would never disapprove of a public entity lawyer, not even a City Attorney, acting in the financial interest of the city even though doing so might require inflicting serious harm on the public. In this case, it seems to have required that Jan Goldsmith make a false accusation against the victim of a sexual predator who acted under cover of authority.
It's amazing how morally compartmentalized lawyers (and some judges) are. When they're not out telling the public about how moral they are, they're back at the office preparing a motion to accuse the victim of a sexual predator police officer of bribing that officer!
This is the same issue that Mike Aguirre and Leslie Devaney argued in 2005. Leslie Devaney clearly thinks that people who work for the city attorney are right to defend the "city" by helping to conceal wrongdoing by the city against its own people.
Officer Anthony Arevalos Channel 6 video
I learned about this story from Roundtable on KPBS radio today:
...Arevalos Victim Accused Of Bribery
The woman who was the first to accuse SDPD officer Anthony Arevalos of sexual misconduct was praised by Police Chief William Lansdowne as courageous. That was then.
This week, we learned she was accused of bribery by the San Diego City Attorney’s Office in its pretrial defense of a federal lawsuit against the city.
The city said the woman, who remains anonymous, offered Arevalos her underwear to get out of a DUI. She engaged in negotiation with Arevalos over her arrest, which amounts to bribery. At Arevalos’ trial, she testified that he asked her for the panties to make the arrest go away.
The day after a story on the city's defense strategy appeared in U-T San Diego, City Attorney Jan Goldsmith said the city had dropped that line of defense and would no longer accuse "Jane Doe" of bribery.
Some observers see similarities to the city attorney’s response last fall to Irene McCormack’s lawsuit against the city and Mayor Bob Filner for sexual misconduct. Among other things, the city said that any injury or damage was caused and exacerbated by McCormack herself...
CITY: EX-COP’S ACCUSER TRIED BRIBE
Woman hailed by police chief for reporting sexual misconduct offered her underwear, City Attorney’s Office says
By Greg Moran
SDUT
Jan 15, 2014
Once called courageous by San Diego’s police chief, the woman who first accused former San Diego Police Officer Anthony Arevalos of sexual misconduct is now being accused of bribery by lawyers defending the city in a federal lawsuit.
In court papers filed for a pretrial hearing, the city says the woman offered Arevalos her underwear as a bribe in order to get out of a drunken-driving charge in 2011.
That’s a dramatic turnabout by the city. Chief William Lansdowne called the woman “very courageous” for reporting Arevalos and cooperating with investigators when Arevalos was arrested three days after the March 8, 2011, incident.
The woman, identified only as “Jane Doe” in her civil-rights lawsuit against the city, was stopped by Arevalos in the Gaslamp on suspicion of drunken driving. She testified at his trial that he asked her what she would be willing to do to make the DUI arrest go away, and he suggested she give him her panties.
The two went to a bathroom inside a nearby 7-Eleven where she removed her underwear, she testified, and Arevalos touched her before allowing her to dress.
Arevalos, serving his sentence at Corcoran state prison, did not take the stand at the trial.
The city’s position, outlined in legal papers filed two months ago seeking to have the woman’s lawsuit dismissed, paints a different picture.
“Plaintiff bribed Officer Arevalos with her panties to get out of the DUI,” the filing says. “Both plaintiff and Arevalos agreed to consummate the bribe in a nearby 7-Eleven in the Gaslamp.”
Browne Greene, a lawyer for Jane Doe, said the city’s position is hard to believe.
“After she comes forward to report she’s been assaulted, they proclaim her a hero,” he said. “And now, in federal court, they call her a briber.”
A spokesman for San Diego City Attorney Jan Goldsmith said in a written statement that the Jane Doe case is different from a dozen other women’s claims that the office has settled related to Arevalos’ conduct.
“Unlike the other cases, this one remaining case has evidence that the plaintiff actually negotiated over avoiding a DUI,” the statement said. “Regardless of outrage from plaintiff’s lawyer seeking a payday, if we have to try a case our trial lawyers present the jury with the truth.”
The woman was not arrested for bribery or drunken driving. Citing the ongoing lawsuit and Arevalos’ appeal of his criminal conviction, a spokeswoman for District Attorney Bonnie Dumanis declined to comment on whether prosecutors ever considered a bribery charge against the woman.
Jane Doe is the last of a dozen women who sued the city or filed legal claims alleging they were subjected to sexual harassment or assault by Arevalos when he was an officer. So far the city has paid out some $2.3 million in claims.
Dan Gilleon, a lawyer who represented several women in those claims, said the city’s statements accusing the woman could backfire with a jury.
“It’s offensive the city would be doing this right now,” he said. “In these sexual assault, sexual harassment cases the last option you want to take is to blame the victim.”
Arevalos’ trial lawyer, Gretchen Von Helms, said Tuesday that the woman testified that she wanted to get out of the DUI charge. The city interprets that as offering a bribe, she said.
The federal lawsuit has become increasingly contentious as it moves closer to a trial, which will probably occur this year. Neither side appears willing to settle.
In the two years since it was filed, lawyers for the woman have built a case arguing that Arevalos was part of a larger culture of misconduct inside the department. The lawsuit is seeking a federal judge to appoint an independent monitor to oversee how the department handles complaints from citizens about officer misconduct.
The city says no such monitor is needed.
Arevalos was convicted of sexual battery, bribery and other charges and sentenced to eight years in prison. He’s seeking a new trial based on evidence discovered after the trial during the Jane Doe civil case that his lawyers say San Diego police should have turned over before the trial, but never did as the law requires.
A hearing on that issue is set for Feb. 7 in front of Superior Court Judge Jeffrey Fraser, who presided over the trial. Jane Doe has been ordered to appear to testify about the notes.
Tuesday, August 24, 2010
He must have been doing something right: San Diego's Bill Lerach was a man who inspired fear and loathing in corporate boardrooms
Fear and Loathing in the Boardroom
Bill Lerach built a behemoth securities class-action law business
March 24, 2010.
By SETH HETTENA
San Diego's Bill Lerach was a man who inspired fear and loathing in corporate boardrooms across America. Lerach ran the West Coast operations of Milberg Weiss and was for many years the foremost class-action securities lawyer in America.
He extracted settlements in the millions, even tens of millions of dollars. That earned him powerful enemies. Congress tried to rein him in by overriding a presidential veto in 1995 to pass what became known as the "Get Lerach Act." But he went on to lead the biggest class-action lawsuit in history, the University of California's $7.2 billion judgment against Enron Corp.
In 2008, Lerach was sentenced to two years in federal prison after pleading guilty to conspiring to conceal kickbacks paid to plaintiffs. The 64-year-old Lerach spoke with us not long after he finished serving his prison sentence, part of which was spent in home confinement at his La Jolla mansion.
You cooperated with the authors of Circle of Greed, the book that chronicles your rise and fall. How fairly did the book portray you?
The book is tough on me. It's hard to write a book as long as that book is and not have some mistakes in it. I know and respect the authors very much and thought it was a very legitimate effort. Overall, I'm satisfied with it. Everyone wishes every book written about them portrayed them uniformly but I guess in my case that's not possible.
What's missing?
The book should have pointed out the work we did without expectation of compensation. We represented victims of the Holocaust in major, difficult lawsuits against major companies that cooperated with the Nazis. The book didn't talk about the work we did on behalf of workers, young women, brought to the Mariana Islands by Hong Kong businessmen and were exploited and had their civil rights and personal rights destroyed.
California's biggest law firms are in San Francisco or LA. What were the advantages or disadvantages of practicing in San Diego?
Other than getting out of bed a little early to fly to San Francisco and LA, I don't think there were any disadvantages and there were even some advantages. It's a great city, you're able to attract talent because people wanted to live here, and I found the defense bar, with a few exceptions, to be excellent. The local newspaper was horrid. So that was a disadvantage. It's the worst big city newspaper in America.
You've said that payments to plaintiffs that landed you in prison were standard practice among firms specializing in securities lawsuits. Why don't we see more prosecutions of securities lawyers?
I don't think we should have been prosecuted. I am only pointing out that as often the case, practices in an industry, whether they are good practices or bad practices, are industry practices. We would not have voluntarily shared our legal fees unless it was an absolute necessity to do so. We were in a competitive industry. Adam Smith's invisible hand is still at work. You don't give away money unless you have to.
You were a big Democratic supporter and you went after politically connected firms like Enron and Halliburton. Did politics play a role in your prosecution?
How can I say that? I wasn't the prosecutor and I wasn't sitting with Karl Rove. The facts are what the facts are and you've listed some of those facts. We were a terrible big sharp thorn in the accounting firms and investment banks that worship in the Republican temple. You make your own decision.
What's your take on what caused the financial crisis?
Don't focus on 2008. Go back and focus on 2000 where you had not as much of a systemically threatening crisis but you had a gigantic fraud by the dot-com companies. Trillions of dollars were lost by investors in financial markets. Then you had the most recent financial crisis.
These meltdowns are due to insufficient regulation of free-market capitalism. There is a lack of civil and criminal legal accountability on the part of powerful corporate and Wall Street actors who take the risks and engage in conduct that cause these ultimate meltdowns to occur. As night follows day, when the consequences for fraudulent behavior were reduced you got -- guess what -- more fraud...
Bill Lerach built a behemoth securities class-action law business
March 24, 2010.
By SETH HETTENA
San Diego's Bill Lerach was a man who inspired fear and loathing in corporate boardrooms across America. Lerach ran the West Coast operations of Milberg Weiss and was for many years the foremost class-action securities lawyer in America.
He extracted settlements in the millions, even tens of millions of dollars. That earned him powerful enemies. Congress tried to rein him in by overriding a presidential veto in 1995 to pass what became known as the "Get Lerach Act." But he went on to lead the biggest class-action lawsuit in history, the University of California's $7.2 billion judgment against Enron Corp.
In 2008, Lerach was sentenced to two years in federal prison after pleading guilty to conspiring to conceal kickbacks paid to plaintiffs. The 64-year-old Lerach spoke with us not long after he finished serving his prison sentence, part of which was spent in home confinement at his La Jolla mansion.
You cooperated with the authors of Circle of Greed, the book that chronicles your rise and fall. How fairly did the book portray you?
The book is tough on me. It's hard to write a book as long as that book is and not have some mistakes in it. I know and respect the authors very much and thought it was a very legitimate effort. Overall, I'm satisfied with it. Everyone wishes every book written about them portrayed them uniformly but I guess in my case that's not possible.
What's missing?
The book should have pointed out the work we did without expectation of compensation. We represented victims of the Holocaust in major, difficult lawsuits against major companies that cooperated with the Nazis. The book didn't talk about the work we did on behalf of workers, young women, brought to the Mariana Islands by Hong Kong businessmen and were exploited and had their civil rights and personal rights destroyed.
California's biggest law firms are in San Francisco or LA. What were the advantages or disadvantages of practicing in San Diego?
Other than getting out of bed a little early to fly to San Francisco and LA, I don't think there were any disadvantages and there were even some advantages. It's a great city, you're able to attract talent because people wanted to live here, and I found the defense bar, with a few exceptions, to be excellent. The local newspaper was horrid. So that was a disadvantage. It's the worst big city newspaper in America.
You've said that payments to plaintiffs that landed you in prison were standard practice among firms specializing in securities lawsuits. Why don't we see more prosecutions of securities lawyers?
I don't think we should have been prosecuted. I am only pointing out that as often the case, practices in an industry, whether they are good practices or bad practices, are industry practices. We would not have voluntarily shared our legal fees unless it was an absolute necessity to do so. We were in a competitive industry. Adam Smith's invisible hand is still at work. You don't give away money unless you have to.
You were a big Democratic supporter and you went after politically connected firms like Enron and Halliburton. Did politics play a role in your prosecution?
How can I say that? I wasn't the prosecutor and I wasn't sitting with Karl Rove. The facts are what the facts are and you've listed some of those facts. We were a terrible big sharp thorn in the accounting firms and investment banks that worship in the Republican temple. You make your own decision.
What's your take on what caused the financial crisis?
Don't focus on 2008. Go back and focus on 2000 where you had not as much of a systemically threatening crisis but you had a gigantic fraud by the dot-com companies. Trillions of dollars were lost by investors in financial markets. Then you had the most recent financial crisis.
These meltdowns are due to insufficient regulation of free-market capitalism. There is a lack of civil and criminal legal accountability on the part of powerful corporate and Wall Street actors who take the risks and engage in conduct that cause these ultimate meltdowns to occur. As night follows day, when the consequences for fraudulent behavior were reduced you got -- guess what -- more fraud...
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