The State - News from Feb. 7, 1989

The former operator of a court reporting service in San Diego has pleaded guilty to mail fraud, and apparently will cooperate in a federal investigation of Los Angeles lawyers purportedly involved in an insurance fraud scheme. Suzanne Rubin, 29, who had been arraigned on a single mail fraud count, changed her plea to guilty in San Diego federal court. U.S. District Judge John Rhoades ordered her plea agreement with federal prosecutors sealed. Neither Rubin nor her lawyer would say if she is assisting the government. But Assistant U.S. Atty. George D. Hardy called this “a fair implication from the circumstances.” Authorities are investigating whether about 15 lawyers, paid millions of dollars by insurers to defend policyholders, schemed to prolong litigation and fatten their fees by conducting unnecessary pretrial discovery and filing spurious claims against each other’s clients.