Sanchez Attorneys Claim Dornan’s Falsified Subpoenas to Get Records

Attorneys for Congresswoman Loretta Sanchez accused former Rep. Robert K. Dornan’s legal team Wednesday of falsifying court subpoenas to secure the immigration records of some 19,000 aspiring citizens in Orange County.

In court papers, Sanchez’s attorneys detailed alleged misconduct by Dornan’s lawyers and asked a federal judge to disqualify them from participating in a case in which Dornan contends that ballots cast by noncitizens contributed to his 984-vote defeat last November.

The congresswoman’s attorneys also accused the California secretary of state’s office of conspiring with Dornan’s attorneys to obtain documents under false pretenses, a charge state officials denied.

“This is legal terrorism,” said Wylie A. Aitken, an attorney for Sanchez (D-Garden Grove), releasing exhibits showing what he described as “a devastating paper trail of deception and deceit.”

Aitken asked U.S. District Judge Gary L. Taylor in Santa Ana to disqualify Dornan’s attorneys and to refer the matter to a federal court committee that investigates lawyer misconduct. Aitken also said he would seek to end an investigation into voter fraud allegations by the House Oversight Committee.

Taylor set June 23 for a hearing on the disqualification motion.

But Dornan’s attorneys fired back, calling their own news conference to deny the charges and say that Sanchez’s lawyers had cooked up the story to distract attention from the “real news” of the day, which is the House moving ahead with its effort to determine how many noncitizens voted in the election.

These allegations are “absolutely false,” said Dornan attorney Michael Schroeder.

“It did not happen,” he said. “This claim is untrue and they are well aware it is untrue.” Schroeder said obtaining the records on these 19,000 people in citizenship classes “is ground zero for the investigation.”

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In his motion, Aitken alleged that Dornan attorney Bill Hart “illegally obtained” documents from Naturalization Assistance Service (NAS), a company in Lakeland, Fla., that contracts with several nonprofit groups in Orange County to provide citizenship classes and tests.

According to Aitken, Hart altered a subpoena to make it appear that a federal court in Florida demanded the release of immigration records for 19,000 legal immigrants residing in Orange County, rather than federal court in Santa Ana.

Those immigrants were students who had enrolled in citizenship classes and had taken tests from groups including Hermandad Mexicana Nacional, Catholic Charities of Orange County and One Stop Immigration in Bellflower.

Dornan’s attorneys issued dozens of subpoenas in early February. Dornan contended that the subpoenas were authorized through Congress, which Sanchez disputed.

Those subpoenas were withdrawn by Taylor, and later reissued to dozens of government agencies, schools, nonprofit organizations, Latino political groups and Sanchez supporters dating back to 1984. Most have not turned over the documents.

Aitken said John Wendel, an attorney with the NAS, had been served with a subpoena, but was never told that the order was later withdrawn by Taylor. The subpoena to Wendel had been issued on a form that made it appear it came from a federal court in Tampa.

Wendel told Sanchez’s attorneys that Wendel “never [would] have agreed to provide any documents to Mr. Hart” had he known the subpoenas were withdrawn, said Fred Woocher, another lawyer for Sanchez, said in a sworn declaration.

But Schroeder said the issuing of subpoenas follows rules used in civil suits for depositions and documents.

Schroeder also said that the responsibility for notifying NAS belonged with Sanchez’s attorneys, who had prevailed in having the initial subpoenas withdrawn. The problem was, he said, that the documents from the Florida firm were already in the mail before Taylor issued his order.

But Woocher said Hart wrote Sanchez’s lawyers indicating that he had “inadvertently” received the documents from NAS. In his letter, Hart proposed that the documents be returned by Federal Express and insisted that he “will not review [the material] or use it,” according to a copy of Hart’s letter filed in court Wednesday.

Woocher charged that Hart instead made copies of the NAS documents, using the computer of a former colleague who--in a sworn declaration--acknowledged using his office computer to copy the material for Hart.