Thursday, January 16, 2003
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Former Orange County Prosecutor Bryan Kazarian Disbarred Due to Drug-Trafficking Conviction
By a MetNews Staff Writer
A former Orange County deputy district attorney, who served 33 months in prison for his role in a drug-trafficking conspiracy, was ordered disbarred yesterday by the California Supreme Court.
In a brief order, the high court unanimously denied Bryan Kazarian’s request that it review a State Bar Court recommendation that he lose his license to practice law as a result of his conviction of a crime of moral turpitude.
Kazarian was released from jail in March after U.S. District Judge Gary L. Taylor sentenced him to time served. He pled guilty to the conspiracy charge in October 1999, admitting that he had tipped off a drug dealer that police had used an informant to help seize 106 pounds of ephedrine, used in making methamphetamine.
Kazarian cooperated with the government in the prosecution of the dealer, John Ward, whom prosecutors said ran the largest methamphetamine ring the county had seen. Ward was sentenced to life imprisonment.
The charge to which Kazarian pled normally carries a minimum of 57 months under the Sentencing Guidelines, but he received a departure recommended by federal prosecutors based on his cooperation in the prosecution of Ward.
Kazarian, a 1991 graduate of Western State University College of Law in Fullerton, worked in a gang unit for a number of years. His defense lawyer, Brian O’Neill, described as “a very good man who did a very dumb and very wrong thing,’’ according to news accounts of the sentencing.
In other action at yesterday’s conference, the justices adopted a State Bar Court recommendation that Los Angeles attorney Bradford E. Henschel be suspended for 18 months and until he proves rehabilitation.
Henschel, who unsuccessfully ran twice for Congress in the early 1980s, was admitted to the State Bar in 1989. He obtained his undergraduate degree from West Los Angeles College and his law degree from the University of West Los Angeles.
A practitioner of criminal defense, bankruptcy, tax and general civil law, he ran for the State Bar Board of Governors in 1997 but dropped out of the race after the ballots were printed. He has had a history of troubles with the disciplinary system, including findings that he retained, unearned fees, failed to obey a court order, and repeatedly failed to perform services competently.
Copyright 2003, Metropolitan News Company