Women Allege Attacks by Marvin Mitchelson

Pioneering palimony and divorce lawyer Marvin M. Mitchelson is under investigation for alleged sexual attacks on two women clients in his Century City office, authorities disclosed Thursday.

“We are reviewing the case to determine whether we should initiate criminal proceedings,” said Chief Deputy Dist. Atty. Gilbert I. Garcetti. “I’d hope that decision is made no later than the beginning of next week.”

The accusations concern separate alleged attacks on a 40-year-old client and a 35-year-old client in 1981 and late last year. The women filed crime reports alleging that Mitchelson “made them engage in sex acts with him against their will,” according to a brief Los Angeles Police Department statement.

‘Totally False’

Mitchelson, 57, asserted Thursday afternoon that the charges “are totally false and without any merit.”

“I’ve spent my legal life defending women, not attacking them,” Mitchelson said in a phone interview. “The district attorney’s office is investigating the (charges) and I’m certain they’ll make an appropriate decision.”

Prosecutors recently entered the case when they were forwarded the results of a three-month investigation by the LAPD’s Robbery-Homicide Division. Cmdr. William Booth, a Police Department spokesman, said the evidence was presented to prosecutors “as a routine procedure” without recommendations on whether charges should be filed.

Garcetti confirmed that Mitchelson and other parties in the case have already been interviewed by prosecutors, and that they have proved “cooperative and available to us.”

Sketchy Details

Law enforcement officials provided only sketchy details concerning the allegations. They also refused to identify Mitchelson’s accusers.

Mitchelson himself said the woman accusing him of the 1985 attack “interestingly enough has sued two psychiatrists and a dentist claiming they sexually attacked her--that’s a history she has, everyone she encounters she claims sexually attacked her.” Mitchelson said he had been representing the woman in a palimony claim until she made the accusations against him.

The 1981 case, he said, involved a woman he declined to represent in a suit alleging a sexual attack on her by a minister. Mitchelson said “it mystifies” him why she is now claiming to authorities that he attacked her.