U.S. Appeals Court Spares Bailey From Jail Sentence

Attorney F. Lee Bailey was saved from a jail cell by an appellate decision Thursday night that stayed a contempt-of-court ruling over his failure to turn over to the government millions of dollars in cash and stocks.

The U.S. 11th Circuit Court of Appeals in Atlanta temporarily stayed the ruling by U.S. District Judge Maurice Paul, sitting in Ocala, Fla., who earlier had ordered Bailey to begin serving a six-month jail term today or pay $3 million in cash and forfeit $18.7 million in stocks.

Prosecutors will be able to file a response to the appeals court’s action today, and Bailey’s attorneys will respond Monday, officials said.

The government contends that Claude Duboc, a convicted drug smuggler who had been defended by Bailey, turned over the cash and stocks to Bailey temporarily and that Bailey spent some of the money and profited when the stocks grew in value. Bailey says he was owed the money and stocks for his legal fees.

Paul wants Bailey to post the assets pending the final resolution of the dispute. He said Bailey could avoid jail with an initial move to pay the government $700,000, return the stocks and pay off a $2.3-million lien against the stocks.

Paul said Bailey “intentionally and in complete disregard of this court’s order” continued to spend money from the funds, and “impeded stock transfers” from Switzerland.

Attorneys for the 62-year-old Bailey, who was not in court Thursday, immediately appealed, arguing that the judge’s decision “is impermissibly punitive, not coercive.” They said their client has only $50,000 in cash and that the remainder of his assets are tied up in real estate, boats and airplanes.

Roger Zuckerman, representing Bailey, said his client has been busy with a New York trial and did not have enough time to liquidate his holdings and make the stock transfer. He said about 164,000 shares of stocks in Canadian biotechnology firm Biochem Pharma Inc., which have increased in value to about $7.5 million, were in the process of being transferred.

For Bailey, renowned as a defense attorney long before he helped win an acquittal on murder charges for O.J. Simpson last year, the legal woes are an embarrassment.

“I’ve tried to raise the millions the order requires,” Bailey told the court last week. “I have worked day and night in every quadrant where I have any clout whatsoever to come up with the money.”

But the judge, through his order, was plainly exasperated by what he saw as Bailey’s stalling and ordered him to jail.

Assistant U.S. Atty. David McGee argued that Bailey should be jailed until he produces the assets. “His actions demonstrate an affront to this court, a disregard to this court’s orders,” McGee said.

But in their motion for a stay, Bailey’s lawyers argued that Bailey has offered to give the court “all that he has,” including his home, boats and planes, as collateral for the $3 million in cash.

Bailey, whose clients have included Dr. Sam Sheppard and Patty Hearst as well as Simpson, insists that the cash and stocks are his, paid as a fee by Duboc, who is now in jail in Ocala after agreeing to testify for the government and to surrender $200 million in cash, real estate and other assets. Duboc fired Bailey last month.

Duboc is a French American charged with money laundering in connection with trafficking in hashish and marijuana. Among his forfeited assets are a French country villa and a home near Paris.

Times researcher Edith Stanley from Atlanta contributed to this story.