City Council Votes to Pay Holden’s Legal Fee

With no public notice or discussion, the Los Angeles City Council voted Friday to spend an initial $75,000 to hire defense attorney Mark Geragos to represent Councilman Nate Holden against allegations that he forced a staffer to work on his political campaign on city time.

Council members voted 11 to 0 to approve the contract with Geragos after Council President Alex Padilla presented them with a special motion that allowed lawmakers to act without posting the matter on their agenda.

“A lawsuit has been filed against the city involving an employment matter in the office of Council member Nate Holden,” Padilla wrote in a memo to the council. “Because the city attorney has declared a conflict in this matter, there is a need to obtain representation ... by an outside firm.”

At Holden’s request, Padilla urged the council to agree to hire Geragos at the hourly rate of $325 in the initial amount of $75,000, which will be taken from the city’s general fund. Geragos, a well-known criminal defense attorney who is representing Winona Ryder in her alleged shoplifting case, has defended Holden and his family in previous cases.

After the late-in-the-meeting vote, one council member--who asked not to be identified--said he voted for the request because “you never know when it’s going to be you needing legal representation.”

Steven Erie, a political science professor at UC San Diego, called Friday’s vote “the classic case of back-scratching.”

“Look at this, they’ve hired a top attorney,” said Erie in an interview. “Basically, it’s a mutual protection agreement.”

Holden said in an interview that he sought quick approval for the contract Friday because he has to prepare a response to the case against him by Tuesday. The council was able to get around the state requirement of giving the public advance notice because it deemed the item an emergency.

Padilla said after the meeting that he carried the motion because city employees “deserve and merit adequate representation.”

Geragos--a frequent legal commentator on CNN--represented Holden’s former daughter-in-law, Michelle Holden, against allegations that she had sexual intercourse with a minor. The former wife of Pasadena City Councilman Chris Holden later pleaded no contest to the charge and was sentenced to three years probation for the offense.

Geragos also defended Nate and Chris Holden in a defamation suit filed by a Los Angeles County sheriff’s captain, who claimed the father and son falsely accused him of soliciting bribes. The captain later dropped the suit.

In the latest case against Holden, one of the councilman’s former field deputies is alleging that he was forced in 1999 to work on Holden’s 10th District reelection campaign and on the campaign of Chris Holden, who was running for mayor of Pasadena.

In 2001, Nate Holden ran unsuccessfully in a special election to fill a vacancy created by the death of Rep. Julian Dixon (D-Los Angeles). Ronald Mayberry said in his suit, filed in U.S. District Court in June, that he spent all his time working on the race from the campaign’s Culver City office.

After being defeated, Holden berated him for the loss, Mayberry said, and suspended him for two days as punishment.

Mayberry, a diabetic, said the stress caused his blood pressure and glucose levels to rise. Following his doctor’s orders, he said in his suit, he took a medical leave of absence using accumulated sick time. Holden then fired him without justification, he said.

Holden on Friday described Mayberry as a disgruntled former employee. He declined to discuss the case further.

Chief Deputy City Atty. Terree Bowers said his office did not take Holden’s case because it was worried about a potential conflict of interest in a case that involves two city employees. He said the office referred the case to the city’s conflict panel, which includes a pool of outside law firms. But Holden complained that the outside attorney assigned to him did not return his calls, prompting him to seek Geragos’ assistance.

Previously, Holden has been the subject of two unrelated sexual harassment cases. The councilman prevailed in both cases after the city spent a total of $1.5 million on his defense.