More than two-and-a-half years have passed since the State Bar said in a Sept. 27, 2022 news release:

"The State Bar of California’s Board of Trustees Chair Ruben Duran announced today that the State Bar is investigating attorneys Mark John Geragos (State Bar No. 108325) and Brian Stephen Kabateck (State Bar No. 152054) in connection with the Armenian Genocide insurance settlement funds from which dispersals were made in the U.S. and France."

Under fire for its dereliction in failing to act on complaints about Tom Girardi until his dishonesty became manifest and widely reported by the news media, that announcement was made, possibly for sake of publicity. The move could backfire if the two are exonerated for a fourth time—or what would possibly be a fifth time as to Geragos.

The State Bar will not comment on what progress has been made. A spokesperson said on May 30 of last year in response to a MetNews inquiry:

“At this time, we can provide no update beyond what was stated in our earlier September 27, 2022 release.”

Kabateck has attained multi-million dollar judgments and settlements; Geragos is a criminal defense lawyer whose clients have included Whitewater defendant Susan McDougal, former Rep. Gary Condit, actress Winona Ryder, and entertainer Michael Jackson.

Kabateck and Geragos obtained a $37.5 million settlement in separate actions against two insurers that failed to pay claims under life insurance policies issued to persons who were slain in the Armenian genocide. Prompted by Los Angeles Times articles suggesting that the lawyers mishandled funds, the State Bar is focusing on what happened to proceeds from a $17.5 million settlement with a French insurer in 2005.

While moneys are missing, the lawyers point out they had nothing to do with the distribution of the proceeds.

Geragos—who has said he will be suing the State Bar—remarked that the State Bar’s mention of Tom Girardi in its news release shows that “all they’re trying to do is deflect” attention from the debacle in failing to take action in response to decades of complaints about Girardi.

Kabateck asserted:

“This is a political stunt by the State Bar.”

On April 2, Div. Five of the Court of Appeal for this district heard oral arguments as to whether a writ of prohibition should issue barring the trial of Diana Teran—a key aide to Los Angeles County District Attorney George Gascón during his now-ended regime—on six counts of unlawfully accessing and making use of confidential electronic personnel files on deputy sheriffs. The case was taken under submission.

A writ petition was filed Oct. 24. Div. Five on Dec. 23 ordered the Los Angeles Superior Court to show cause on April 2 “why the relief prayed for in the petition for writ of prohibition should not be granted,” adding:

“Trial on the charges is stayed pending further order of this court.”

Teran allegedly gained access to the information while employed as a legal advisor to the Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department (“LASD”) and disseminated it to members of the District Attorney's Office after gaining employment there. The case is assigned to Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Charlaine Olmedo.

Various organizations and individuals—including former Los Angeles County District Attorneys Gil Garcetti and Ira Reiner, former U.S. Attorney Debra Yang of the Central District of California, and former Assistant U.S. Attorney and former Los Angeles County Bar Association President Miriam Krinsky—argued in an amicus brief:

“The court determined that the shared documents were all public records—documents open to the public—yet still held Ms. Teran to answer most of the charges against her, based on a ‘logical inference’ (not supported by any factual evidence) that she accessed personnel records of the deputies in question during her time at LASD.

“Given the court's determination that these records are public, the criminal case against Ms. Teran is astonishingly weak. That said, even if the state could prove the criminal statute's elements, the case for prosecuting Ms. Teran still falls short given the special and heightened constitutional and statutory disclosure obligations of a prosecutor.”

Teran was initially charged by the Office of Attorney General with 11 counts, but that office dropped three counts and Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Sam Ohta, after a four-day preliminary hearing, dismissed two others.

The lawyer was arrested and booked on April 27, 2024. She pled not guilty at her arraignment on July 25.

The County Counsel’s Office disclosed, in response to a Public Records Act request by victim rights attorney Kathleen Cady, a former deputy district attorney, that Teran was being paid—$26,970.03 per month, including benefits—while on leave pending resolution of the charges.

County Civil Service Rule 16.01 provides that “[l]eaves of absence from regular duties, with pay, may be granted only by the appointing power under such conditions and for such periods as established by the board of supervisors, when such leaves are determined to be in the best interests of the service.” Rule 16.02 says that leaves without pay may be granted for reasons that are enumerated “or for such other lawful purposes as are deemed by the appointing power to be in the best interest of the department.”

A former high-level member of the County Counsel’s Office commented:

“It should be noted that ‘appointing power’ would mean department head, here Gascon. Although these rules do not expressly address investigations, my recollection is that a leave would be with pay during an investigation but once charges are filed that the leave is without pay (because the employee is frequently dismissed at that point.)”

Other knowledgeable persons say general county policy is to put employees on an unpaid suspension while criminal charges are pending.

It was OK, under the view of the Ninth Circuit Judicial Council, for a District Court judge to have ordered that an attorney with whom he clashed be taken into custody based on his proclamation that she was in contempt—resulting in her being rendered immobile by chains and manacles—and then claiming months later that he hadn’t actually subjected her to criminal contempt proceedings.

The Judicial Council, in an April 23 order, declared that “there is no basis for overturning the order of dismissal” by Ninth Circuit Chief Judge Mary H. Murguia of a complaint submitted by the MetNews  concerning conduct by District Court Judge Stephen V. Wilson of the Central District of California. He was exonerated by Murguia in connection with events on Nov. 17, 2021 that had been spotlighted by this newspaper and otherwise ignored by the news media.

The incident in question was revealed here on Jan. 26, 2023 and commented on in a Feb. 2, 2023 editorial and subsequently.

That conduct had been spelled out, under penalty of perjury, by Westlake Village attorney Marina Lang. She recounted that when she got into a squabble with Wilson over his rulings, she was not merely ordered out of his courtroom but was handcuffed and manacled, forced to hobble in the courthouse hallway before onlookers, booked, and was, for hours, chained to a chair in a cold and smelly basement cell, immobilized, unable even to scratch her nose.

Actions toward her were consequent to an express order by Wilson. The extent of his knowledge as to the precise treatment of Lang was not determined by Murguia in her investigation.

The record does show that after Wilson expressed, with the jury not present, disgruntlement over Lang’s conduct in the closing phases of a trial in a trademark dispute, and the lawyer indicated like displeasure with his behavior, the judge declared:
“You are in contempt,” and asked:

“Is the Marshal there?”

A deputy marshal was present. Wilson then commanded:

“Take Ms. Lang in custody. She’s in contempt of court.”

The order was treated by deputies as an adjudication of a criminal contempt. Lang was purportedly told by deputies, when she protested the metal restraints, that they were doing what the judge wanted. Later, back in the courtroom, Wilson related to Lang’s co-counsel, who had continued representing the client, and to opposing counsel, that Lang was in a “holding area” and advised: “I’m going to order her released.”

She was eventually freed that night after court hours, according to her declaration, with her car locked in a parking lot.

Murguia said in an order filed last Jan. 8:

“[T]he allegations are dismissed as lacking evidence that the district judge exceeded his authority, behaved in a demonstrably egregious and hostile manner, or otherwise engaged in ‘conduct prejudicial to the effective and expeditious administration of the business of the courts.”

She remarked:

“District judges are required to do what is necessary to maintain order in their courtrooms.”

The chief judge did not explain in her order why, in order to maintain order, it was necessary to do more than exclude Lang from the courtroom.

Lang said in her declaration:

“Physically restrained in cuffs and flanked by several fully armed male US Marshals, I was removed from the courtroom without any of my personal belongings, walked down the public hallways of the federal courthouse in plain view of other attorneys, my colleagues, and judicial staff, and then taken in and down the public elevator bank to the Cellblock floor used for criminal defendants. At the Cellblock floor, I was informed I had to go through the booking process. The US Marshals led me to sit down on a chair while they questioned me to obtain personal information and then typed in my answers into then computer system. After I was seated, the US Marshals applied additional physical restraints to my body, restraints that are universally known in criminal law as ‘hogtie’ or ‘hobble’ restraints. I repeatedly asked why physical restraints were being used at all and was informed by the US Marshals that they were following Judge Wilson’s orders and that this was standard practice to protect prisoners from falling and hurting themselves. I was also repeatedly told by the Marshals to stop crying and do as I was told if I wanted to get back to my family that night and not have to sleepover in the prison cell.”

She continued:

“Leg irons were applied in addition to the handcuffs, with a waist chain connecting my irons to the handcuffs. Another chain was wrapped around my chest near my collar bone and locked behind the chair I was sitting in, pinning my shoulders and upper body to the back of chair presumably to prevent me from falling forward out of the chair onto my face. I was imprisoned for hours, without access to my physical liberties, without any sense of time, without any indication of what would happen next to me, without any indication of what she had been arrested for, without any idea how long I would be imprisoned for….The only physical movement available to me was to close my eyes and cry into my face mask. Even when locked in the prison cell. I was chained to a chair in hobble restraints….”

Murguia said in a footnote:

“[A]ny allegation related to the Marshals’ treatment of the attorney while she was detained is not appropriate in a misconduct complaint because the Judicial Conduct Rules apply only to covered federal judges….There is no evidence of any separate claim against the Marshals based on her detainment.”

Another aspect of the matter is the issue of Wilson’s truthfulness about what occurred.

On Dec. 27, 2021, Wilson ordered Lang to show cause why she should not be found in civil contempt, and in the subsequent order so adjudicating her, maintained that he had not previously declared her to be in criminal contempt. In the course of her order dismissing the complaint, Murguia disputed an allegation in a MetNews editorial that in so proclaiming, Wilson lied.

The editorial says:

Wilson is, if nothing else, a liar. On Jan. 26, 2022, in imposing a $3,510 civil contempt fine on Lang, he proclaimed that on Nov. 17, 2021, he had not ‘actually’ found Lang in criminal contempt but merely had her removed from the courtroom. Nonsense. He said she was in contempt. He directed that she be taken into custody.

Wilson said in his written order in connection with the civil contempt:

“But, as this Court has frequently noted, it sought to avoid imposing a punitive measure under the Court's criminal contempt authority....It was for this reason that the Court did not order to her be booked and processed into custody, as it would have if it had summarily punished Ms. Lang for criminal contempt.”

Lang's declaration says she was taken into custody, booked, and imprisoned.

Disingenuously and unpersuasively, Wilson said in a footnote that although he used the word “contempt” on Nov. 17, 2021, there was “not an actual summary contempt adjudication” because he “did not pronounce a sentence, nor complete a summary contempt certification, as required” by Rule 42 of the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure and case law.

His having procedurally botched his effort is hardly exonerating.

Murguia commented:

“[N]othing in the record supports the allegation that the district judge is a liar. That allegation, to the extent that it does not relate to the merits, is dismissed as unfounded.”

The Ninth Circuit’s April 23 order was signed by Ninth Circuit Judges Bridget Shelton Bade, Morgan Christen, Ryan D. Nelson and Jacqueline H. Nguyen, Ninth Circuit Senior Judge Susan P. Graber, District Court Chief Judges Stanley A. Bastian of the Eastern District of Washington and David Estudillo of the Western District of Washington, and Senior District Court Judges Grant Murray Snow of the District of Arizona and Timothy M. Burgess of the District of Alaska. District Court Judge Dolly Gee of the Central District of California did not participate.

The Commission on Judicial Performance (“CJP”) on March 26—in its annual report summarizing its actions in the previous year—divulged a failure on the part of appellate justices to carry out duties faithfully—but did not identify the persons.

Justice ‘X’

The disciplinary body said it privately admonished “[a]n appellate justice” who “delayed decision in several matters by issuing opinions more than three years after each case was fully briefed and assigned to the justice,” noting:

“In one matter, the delay resulted in actual prejudice to a party who was incarcerated unnecessarily.”

Justice ‘Y’

The CJP reported sending an advisory letter to another appellate justice, saying:

“An appellate justice delayed decision in numerous matters by issuing opinions  more than three years after each case was fully briefed and assigned to the justice. The  delay in some of those appeals exceeded four years.”

An inquiry was emailed to Third District Court of Appeal Justice Harry E. Hull who has been publicly identified by appellate attorney Jon B. Eisenberg of Sonoma County as being delinquent, along with others in the Sacramento-based court, in resolving appeals. (The presiding justice, Vance W. Raye, wound up resigning from office, with a public admonishment and a lifetime bar on holding judicial office; Justices William J. Murray and Coleman Blease had retired earlier that year.)

A response came from San Francisco attorney James A. Murphy—who has represented several judges before the CJP—saying that it is “false!” that Hull had received a private admonishment.

However, he did not respond to a further inquiry as to whether Hull received an advisory letter.

The commission did not disclose whether “X” or “Y” (our denomination, not the commission’s) had been filing monthly salary affidavits attesting to having no cases pending before him or her for more than 90 days. Absent such a filing, pursuant to Government Code §68210, the justice would not have received pay, until the backlog had been cleared up, for his or her services, in light of the command of Art. VI, §19, of the state Constitution.

In 2007, in issuing a “severe public censure” to then-Alameda Superior Court Judge Robert B. Freedman (now a mediator/arbitrator), the commission noted that “[t]he most serious form of wrongdoing is willful misconduct” and said:

“…Judge Freedman's reckless submission of erroneous salary affidavits at limes when he was aware he had overdue rulings, with disregard for whether they were true or false, was willful misconduct. Misconduct of such gravity has warranted removal from office.”

The CJP has, through the years, dealt with failures to adhere to the 90-day rule with varying degrees of concern. Not addressed is that filing a knowingly false statement under oath of having no cases pending before him or her for more than 90 days constitutes the felony of perjury.

Alternatives the CJP had, entailing stronger action than an advisory letter or a private admonishment, were to remove the justice from office, issue a public censure (of a garden-variety sort or one labeled “severe”), or impose a public admonishment.