Fed-Up Judge Scolds ‘Nameless’ Defendant

Struggling again to glean the identity of a man accused of fleecing clients of thousands of dollars, a Harbor Municipal Court judge on Monday ordered the defendant to remain in jail.

After twice pressing the man for his true name and date of birth, Judge Susanne S. Shaw got this response:

“Your honor,” said the defendant, “I don’t know.”

The defendant’s attorney then added that her client was invoking his constitutional right, under the Fifth Amendment, to avoid self-incrimination.

Countered Shaw: “That’s fine. That’s great. He can remain in jail. He can remain John Doe forever if he wants. His bail is to remain. Aloha.”

Actually, that wasn’t all.

Before the defendant was led back to jail, held under bail of $100,000, Shaw offered her own exposition on constitutional privilege.

“You think you have a Fifth Amendment right,” Shaw said. “That’s great, because we have a Fifth Amendment right to have bail in this matter. . . . You’re going to be John Doe and Mr. Defendant until we find out who you are. I think we have a right to know what your true date of birth is, where you were born. If you don’t want to give us that, that’s wonderful.”

Deputy Dist. Atty. Connie Johnson also announced during the arraignment that the defendant, accused of using as many as 10 aliases, is being charged with a new felony grand theft count. Johnson said the charge was filed after a woman who read news accounts of the case identified the defendant as the “lawyer” to whom she paid $3,000 in a divorce case.

Interviews and court records show that the defendant was known to many clients and lawyers as J. Christopher Kennedy, the name of an attorney who is licensed by the State Bar of California.

Among the other aliases used by the defendant, according to the records, were: Jeffery Biddle Smith, Christopher Chamberlain, Philip Santos Centineo and Christopher Larry Parks. He varied those names by slightly changing spellings and the middle names, according to the records.