Legal-aid firm accused in fraud suit

A lawsuit filed in federal court last week alleges that a company that purports to offer legal services to low-income people nationwide instead preys on them.

According to the suit filed in Denver, the victims had asked for assistance from Legal Aid National Services of Aurora, Colo. -- or one of a dozen related entities -- thinking that they were dealing with a legitimate provider of services for low-income persons.

Those companies and 15 individuals affiliated with them have been operating fake legal-aid operations in 27 states, from California to New Hampshire, the suit alleges. In addition, the defendants also operate paralegal services in every state except Alaska, according to the complaint.

The suit alleges that the defendants violated a bevy of laws including the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, federal copyright laws, federal false-advertising laws and various state statutes, including unfair competition laws.

The victims assert that they wired money or provided credit card information up front. Those individuals contend that they received inadequate or no services and were left to fend for themselves in court.

The 77-page suit states that individual defendants, who are key figures in Legal Aid National Services, have been involved in similar scams for the last 13 years, first operating in California, then moving their business successively to Florida, Nevada and finally Colorado. Some of the defendants reportedly are convicted felons, according to the suit.

The suit names Kendrick Brown of Lone Tree, Colo., as the lead defendant.

According to the suit, the defendant has a long list of aliases, including Kendrick White, Eugene White and Pendrick White and “has previously been incarcerated in both Florida and California.”

Efforts by The Times to contact him or the corporate office for comment were unsuccessful.

The suit states that he previously operated similar businesses in Palmdale and Lancaster, several cities in Florida and in Las Vegas. Other principals of the company are described as residents of Las Vegas, Los Angeles and Denver.

Thursday marked the second time in four months that San Francisco-based Morrison & Foerster has lodged a suit of this type. The first, filed in Contra Costa County Superior Court, alleged that a California company was swindling people who needed help with evictions.

The latest suit is much broader and was joined by the Minneapolis-based firm of Faegre & Benson.

It was brought on behalf of two legal-aid organizations, Texas Rio Grande Legal Aid Inc. and Colorado Legal Services, both of which provide services to low-income people in areas where the scams allegedly were perpetrated.

The suit seeks damages and disgorgement of the defendants’ “ill-gotten gains.”

Moreover, the plaintiffs are seeking broad injunctive relief in an effort to prohibit the defendants from the unauthorized practice of law and the use of names that in any way suggest that they are associated with a legitimate legal-aid organization.

“Defendants have been engaged in the foregoing practices for more than a decade and continually reinvent themselves and their business names in an attempt to defraud more consumers,” according to the suit.

“By all accounts, defendants’ enterprise is extremely lucrative,” the suit states. In papers filed in U.S. bankruptcy court in Colorado, witnesses maintained that White alone “expected to earn $1.7 million in 2007 from defendants’ fraudulent businesses.”

“The actions alleged in this case are highly disturbing,” said Alex Lawrence of Morrison & Foerster. “Not only have the defendants hijacked the names of legitimate legal services providers . . . they’ve done so in order to target individuals who already are vulnerable, facing some of the most difficult personal crises of their lives.”

Legal Aid National Services, also known as LANS Corp., advertises on the Internet and on a number of public websites under a variety of names designed to induce consumers to retain their services, according to the suit.

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henry.weinstein@latimes.com