Lawyer Adds Bizarre Note to Denny Case : Court: Defendant’s mother says she will stick with attorney who was fired by law firm for ‘highly questionable behavior.’ His resume makes grandiose claims.

Although a law firm fired her son’s attorney, Dennis Palmieri, for “highly questionable behavior and poor judgment,” the mother of a defendant facing trial in the beating of trucker Reginald O. Denny said she will stick with the lawyer.

“I think he did a good job,” said Georgiana Williams, the mother of Damian Monroe (Football) Williams. “To me he’s lucid. I have no reason to believe he is disturbed.”

Other attorneys, including Palmieri’s co-counsel on Williams’ defense team, said the lawyer’s conduct has been unusual.

The Center for Constitutional Law and Justice fired Palmieri on Tuesday, noting that his recently submitted resume indicated that his ideas were responsible for “dismantling the Berlin Wall, raising the Iron Curtain, unifying Germany, bringing democracy to Eastern Europe and the individual republics of the Soviet Union.”

A copy of the resume provided to The Times does not list any law firms Palmieri has worked for, but it includes among Palmieri’s achievements the advocacy of a lunar mining colony, a Martian expedition and “edifying re-examination of the Christian Principal in its substance and essence.”

An earlier resume Palmieri submitted turned out to be filled with unverifiable information, said the center’s deputy director, Fred Sebastian.

Palmieri did not disavow his second resume, but he dismissed the attacks on his skills and demeanor as irrelevant and untrue.

“It’s mudslinging time because of certain improprieties,” he said, declining to elaborate. “What does all this mean? To me it means nothing.

“My concern has been, is now and will continue to be the dedicated, committed, complete, full, thorough and absolute defense of a man and human being named Damian Monroe Williams. Because of that, anything else is irrelevant.”

Williams’ mother said she would consider replacing Palmieri only if her son wishes to.

In a statement issued after Palmieri’s firing, the law center cited his “highly questionable behavior and poor judgment regarding serious criminal matters.”

Palmieri is a 1979 graduate of Western State University of Law in Fullerton, according to his resume. He is a member in good standing of the California State Bar with no discipline record, a bar spokeswoman said Wednesday.

Williams, Henry Keith (Kiki) Watson and Antoine Eugene Miller on Tuesday were ordered to stand trial on charges of attempted murder, aggravated mayhem, torture and robbery in attacks on Denny and others. Outside court, Palmieri asked a reporter, “Did you hear my argument today? Have you ever heard such a great argument from a lawyer?”

A second attorney for Williams, Alaleh Kamran, said Palmieri told her he was being fired because the center was out to destroy “Dennis the Great. . . . I am Dennis Palmieri the Great and everyone knows me around the world.”

On Wednesday, Palmieri denied having referred to himself as “Dennis the Great.”

“I told my bosses I’m sitting on a time bomb,” Kamran said. “Do I think he becomes delusional every once in a while? Yes. Do I think he has delusions of grandeur? Yes.”

Other attorneys also have reservations about Palmieri.

Sandra Medina, a Mammoth Lakes attorney who shared office space with Palmieri in 1991, said she asked him to leave because of what she saw as disturbing conduct. “His behavior was very bizarre,” she said. “He informed me that he was Jesus and that his enemies would be crucified.”

Last fall, Palmieri was asked to leave a Mammoth hotel, the Ullr Lodge, whose owner said he told her he was Jesus.

His behavior was so odd, said the owner, Karla Rollins, that she kept a file on him. “He would sit here in my TV lounge with the lights off talking to himself,” Rollins said. “He would say that people would be punished for what they had done to him in his past life.”

Rollins said she found Palmieri in the bathroom on several occasions chanting and mumbling to himself. Several times, she said, he told her he was Jesus.

Mammoth Lakes Police Lt. Mike Donnelly said police were summoned to the lodge and the law office when Palmieri was asked to leave, but there were no problems or arrests.

Asked Wednesday if he ever claimed to be Jesus Christ, Palmieri said: “There are people who have told me I am Satan. There are people who have told me I am a man from Mars. There are people who have told me I’m a communist, a spy, a murderer. . . . The list goes on.”