D.A. Drops Billing Suit Against Last of 9 Lawyers

The Los Angeles district attorney’s office has dropped a suit filed against an attorney it accused of overbilling the county while representing indigent defendants, officials said.

The civil case against Richard Orozco, a Fullerton attorney and former Orange County municipal judge, was to have gone to trial this week. But new evidence presented last week by the defense “made it evident we could not proceed in the case against him,” said Deputy Dist. Atty. Richard Healey.

Orozco was one of nine attorneys accused five years ago of overbilling the county by more than $1 million. The attorneys had participated in the Los Angeles County Bar Assn.’s Indigent Criminal Defense Appointment Program. The panel of court-sanctioned attorneys provides services to indigent clients when the public defender’s office is unavailable to handle the cases.

Earlier this year, seven of the lawyers agreed to out-of-court settlements under which they repaid the county a total of more than $200,000. Another attorney, Michael Morse of Los Angeles, was ordered Wednesday to pay damages of $12,000. Morse was found liable in April by Superior Court Judge Harvey Schneider.

The district attorney had filed a fraudulent-business-practice suit against Orozco, alleging he had overbilled the county by $23,000. The suit sought civil penalties of up to $1 million. Earlier this year, Orozco turned down an offer by the district attorney to settle the case in exchange for Orozco’s paying the county $7,500. The amount under dispute at the time the trial was to start had been reduced to $3,600.

Attorney Dan Stormer, who represents Orozco, said that during pretrial discussions Friday, he produced payroll logs and other accounting information that showed his client was not liable. He noted that the billings that auditors alleged represented excessive billing for in-court hours also included the attorney’s charges for out-of-court work on the same cases.

Stormer explained that court-appointed attorneys make $40 an hour whether they are in court or doing outside preparation. Orozco, he said, had lumped together charges for both services. In one instance, the county alleged that Orozco had not even appeared in court. However, Stormer said, his client provided evidence that he had been in court.