4 Lawyers in Billing Probe Denied Cases

Los Angeles Municipal Court judges were told Wednesday by Presiding Judge Malcolm H. Mackey to quit assigning indigent defendants to four attorneys until accusations of overbilling the county can be resolved.

Mackey did not include in his order the names of three other lawyers identified as targets of a county chief administrative office probe of alleged irregularities in the millions paid each year to court-appointed attorneys.

He indicated that the court’s executive committee would consider any possible further action at its regular meeting on Tuesday. Three of the attorneys suspended by Mackey in the meantime from needy-case assignments--Marc A. Leftwich, Antonio Luna and Eric Wexler--were subjects of a KNBC report this week. Reporter Harvey Levin said the station’s investigation showed they had billed the county for services apparently never performed.

“It appears that allegations have been made in the news media . . . regarding possible improprieties in the billing practices of certain (appointed) attorneys . . .” Mackey said in his directive to his judges.

He said the lawyers should not be considered for any further appointments “pending resolution of those allegations.”

The fourth attorney named by Mackey was Curt V. Leftwich, a member of the same law firm. The presiding judge said the court’s own inquiry showed “possible improprieties” by him also in billing the Municipal Court for assigned indigent-case work.

None of the four was available for comment Wednesday.

Christopher Crawford, deputy chief of the Court Services Section of the Los Angeles Municipal Court, emphasized that the Mackey action “is not a criminal proceeding” and was taken pending the outcome of the court’s own internal financial audit.

He pointed out that the move was separate from the action Tuesday by the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors, which asked the district attorney to investigate billings for court-appointed work by three attorneys who, according to a city administrative office report, charged the county a total of $931,000 from September, 1982, through December, 1983.

Those attorneys were identified by county officials as Charles E. Lloyd, Charles C. Patton and James L. Farley.

Crawford noted that many of the allegations involving Lloyd, Patton and Farley involved the Superior Court and thus were not pertinent to Mackey’s order to Municipal Court judges.

In his television report, KNBC’s Levin said he had found that Marc Leftwich, Luna and Wexler had been appointed to more than 1,000 cases during the last year and that they had billed the court a total of more than $300,000.

In some cases, according to Levin, the county was billed for supposed court appearances on holidays and weekends when court was not in session.