The State Bar of California filed disciplinary fees this week towards a Tarzana lawyer for his function in an alleged scheme to engineer a sham multimillion-dollar lawsuit and settlement with the Los Angeles Division of Water and Energy.
The State Bar accused Michael Libman of colluding with metropolis attorneys on the similar time that he was suing the town on behalf of his shopper, a disgruntled DWP buyer named Antwon Jones.
The sue-and-settle scheme was achieved in a manner that benefited the town, lined Libman’s pockets, stored Jones at midnight about what was occurring and in the end violated the ethics code that attorneys should abide by, based on State Bar prosecutors.
“California attorneys are certain by regulation to behave in the very best pursuits of their shoppers, free from conflicts which may cause them to favor others or themselves over their shoppers,” the State Bar’s high prosecutor, Chief Trial Counsel George Cardona, mentioned in an announcement Thursday asserting the costs.
The disciplinary motion is the newest twist in a DWP corruption saga that largely centered on the function of the L.A. metropolis lawyer’s workplace and the way its attorneys responded to litigation over a defective billing system.
The scandal, dubbed an “extremely sordid affair” by the federal choose who oversaw the legal case, resulted in 4 individuals, together with three high metropolis workers, pleading responsible to numerous crimes.
“I’m dissatisfied that the State Bar filed fees towards me on this politicized LADWP case pushed by vindictive, corrupt and related attorneys bent on railroading me,” Libman advised The Instances on Thursday. “If I’ll get a good trial that enables me to current all of the proof, I shall be absolutely vindicated and the true scale of the layers of corruption additional uncovered.”
Libman was not charged by federal prosecutors and was not alleged to be the mastermind of the collusion scheme.
However Libman served because the California-based counsel to Jones, the lead plaintiff within the “collusive” lawsuit. Jones had obtained an inflated DWP invoice and sued the town, in the end leading to a $67-million settlement to him and different DWP prospects. About $19 million in attorneys charges had been paid out, together with greater than $1.6 million to Libman.
The costs painting Libman as a puppet of the town’s attorneys, taking directions from his adversary about the right way to symbolize his shopper.
Among the many allegations: that Libman put his letterhead and signature on a declare that the town’s attorneys had ready; that the town’s attorneys ghostwrote the lawsuit; and that the settlement agreements within the case had been additionally ready by the town’s attorneys.
Jones was beneath the impression that impartial counsel was representing him and different class members. However prosecutors allege that Libman was compromised by “excessive conflicts.”
Additional, the State Bar alleges that Libman got here to symbolize Jones after a member of the L.A. metropolis lawyer’s workplace directed two outdoors attorneys, Paul Kiesel and Paul Paradis, “to seek out outdoors counsel pleasant to the Metropolis and its targets” to symbolize Jones, based on the State Bar.
By orchestrating the swimsuit and settlement, the Jones lawsuit thereby grew to become a mechanism to tightly and cleanly settle all claims on phrases that had been favorable to the town, prosecutors say.
The misrepresentations prolonged past his relationship to his shopper, with prosecutors accusing him of additionally concealing this collusion from the state choose who in the end signed off on the $67-million settlement.
That choose in the end ordered Libman to return his $1.65-million price. In December, an appellate courtroom upheld the decrease courtroom, discovering that “the egregious nature of Libman’s moral violations on this case supported full forfeiture of the charges that he obtained,” based on an opinion by Justice Carl H. Moor.
Within the legal probe of the DWP scandal, Paradis pleaded responsible to 1 depend of bribery, and in November a federal choose sentenced him to 33 months in jail. Kiesel was by no means charged.
Libman’s case will proceed in State Bar courtroom, which adjudicates attorneys’ conduct and moral points, with potential penalties together with disbarment or non permanent suspension from working towards regulation.
Instances employees author Dakota Smith contributed to this report.
