Phony Lawyer Suspect Headed Phantom Firm

A man accused of handling more than 100 criminal cases while posing as a lawyer headed a “phantom” Santa Ana firm that included the names of three other men who either are not lawyers or who are dead, the State Bar of California said Friday.

John Vescera, who was jailed Wednesday by an Orange County Municipal Court judge on contempt of court charges for allegedly misrepresenting himself as a lawyer, listed as partners two men who are not lawyers, and the other could be one of two lawyers who practiced in Northern California and died more than 20 years ago, a spokeswoman for the State Bar said.

35-Day Sentence

Vescera, 28, is serving a 35-day jail term on the contempt of court sentence.

Deputy Dist. Atty. Arthur Koelle said that prosecutors are investigating Vescera on suspicion of grand theft and other criminal activities in connection with his allegedly phony practice of law. They also are looking for a man Vescera worked with and identified to others as his brother, Frank Vescera.

The information from the State Bar supports the beliefs of prosecutors, investigators, lawyers and others who share office space with the firm that the other partners never existed. The office is on the seventh floor of a building at 600 W. Santa Ana Blvd. in Santa Ana. “Nobody seems to know who (the other partners) were,” Koelle said.

Some of the lawyers and others who work on the same floor said that they never saw anyone but Vescera and the man identified as his brother in the law office.

3 Names Listed

Although directories in the building do not list the full names of the partnership, the building manager identified the other three partners as Richard Chancellor, Stephen Lawford and Arthur Hill.

Chancellor and Lawford were never licensed as lawyers in California and the only two lawyers named Arthur Hill were a father and son who practiced law in Eureka, according to State Bar spokeswoman Jeanne Baker.

The elder Hill died in 1952 and his son died in 1963, she said.

Baker said a lawyer named John Vescera lives in the Newport Beach area and is still a dues-paying member of the State Bar at 94 years old. That Vescera, who could not be reached Friday, was born May 5, 1890, and was licensed on Sept. 11, 1922, about 34 years before the jailed Vescera was born.

Presiding Municipal Court Judge Jacquelyn D. Thomason said she called the younger Vescera into her chambers on Wednesday because she had received a complaint about the way he was soliciting clients, primarily Spanish-speaking defendants accused of drunken driving.

No Record at USC

When he turned over his State Bar identification card at her request, she said, she became suspicious because he was handling so many cases. She contacted State Bar offices, she said, and also called the USC School of Law, from which Vescera told her he had graduated.

The State Bar advised her that the only John Vescera listed as a lawyer was licensed in 1922, she said, and USC officials said they had no record of a law school graduate named Vescera.

Koelle and investigators for the district attorney’s office obtained a warrant to search Vescera’s office Wednesday evening. They seized files and other material from the office and $25,900 from a bank deposit box.

As investigators continued to review the material Friday, Koelle said he believes the money “represents a portion of the money that was taken from clients.” The files indicate that Vescera’s clients paid him $600 to $750 each to handle their cases.

Koelle said Vescera apparently was looking for cases by checking records in the court clerk’s office and then calling or sending letters to defendants to offer his services as a lawyer.

Judge Thomason said she has offered free public defender’s services to Vescera’s clients who are awaiting trial.

The prosecutor’s office said it is reviewing the more than 100 criminal cases handled by Vescera and the man identified as his brother to determine if further proceedings are warranted.