L.A. County Drops Suit Against Fullerton Lawyer

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

The civil case against Richard Orozco, a Fullerton lawyer 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,” Deputy Dist. Atty. Richard B. Healey said.

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

Earlier this year, seven of the lawyers agreed to out-of-court settlements by which they repaid the county a total of more than $200,000. Another lawyer, 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. Orozco earlier this year turned down an offer by the district attorney to settle the case in exchange for Orozco’s paying the county $7,500. The amount being disputed when 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 showing that 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 said that court-appointed attorneys make $40 an hour whether they are in court or doing outside preparation work. Orozco, he said, had lumped together charges for both services. In one instance, the county had alleged that Orozco had not even appeared in court. However, Stormer said, his client provided evidence that he had indeed been in court.