Legal Fees Draw Fire

Two of the region’s poorest cities have spent millions of dollars in public funds to defend officials under investigation for political corruption, and are resisting public scrutiny of the bills.

In South Gate, legal fees in criminal cases now approach $1.5 million, 10% of the annual budget. In Cudahy, the county’s second-poorest city, attorney fees have cost nearly $800,000, about half of the city’s emergency reserves.

As costs mount, so do questions from critics about the legality and size of the bills.

Politicians in both cities insist that publicly financed defenses are necessary to protect themselves and their colleagues from overzealous prosecutors.

But a judge in one South Gate case has ordered the city to halt payments to one law firm after he was persuaded by residents’ arguments in a lawsuit claiming that the defense payments amounted to a gift of public funds.

In another case, the same law firm, Sheppard, Mullin, Richter & Hampton, billed the city $613,000 for representing Treasurer Albert Robles in a grand jury investigation in which he appeared only briefly and did not testify.

The attorney at the center of the controversy, Thomas M. Brown, refused to answer questions about his firm’s fees. Brown’s firm has charged as much as $425 an hour for his services.

The controversy comes two years after Dist. Atty. Steve Cooley launched investigations countywide into allegations of municipal corruption.

The legal dream teams hired in South Gate and Cudahy include former federal prosecutors and a former state Supreme Court justice from some of Los Angeles’ most prestigious and expensive law firms. One member of the Cudahy defense team is former Dist. Atty. Robert Philibosian. A key campaign supporter of Cooley, he is a partner of Brown’s at Sheppard Mullin.

City officials in South Gate refused requests from The Times for access to the billing statements, citing attorney-client privilege.

“Some of these city councils are authorizing these outrageous, obscene amounts of money for these defense attorneys ... without any basis,” Cooley said. “It’s just another example of their corruption.”

Defense attorneys blame Cooley. They accuse his prosecutors in the public integrity unit of badgering and humiliating witnesses, and of pursuing politically motivated cases.

“The public integrity unit has no integrity,” Brown said.

His co-counsel, George B. Newhouse Jr., one of eight defense lawyers in the South Gate investigations, called the prosecution “an assault on democracy in South Gate. The city will not countenance having its elected officials ousted by any means other than the ballot box.”

It is common for municipalities to pay for the defense of public officials when their actions could subject city taxpayers to civil lawsuits and liability, such as in police misconduct or sexual harassment cases.

In public corruption cases, councils often follow different legal strategies, based on whether they believe that the public interest is at stake. Councils in Bell Gardens and Huntington Park have decided to let alleged wrongdoers in their cities defend themselves.

Brown has said that he plans to report Cooley to the State Bar of California for allegedly contacting some of his clients improperly. Cooley’s prosecutors no longer speak with Brown without a court reporter present.

In South Gate, a working-class city of 96,000, almost every elected official has been under investigation within the last year. Brown represents Robles, the city’s perceived political boss, in two cases. In one, Robles was subpoenaed as part of a grand jury investigation last year that ended with two allies pleading no contest to electoral fraud charges.

Appearing before the grand jury in December, Robles invoked his 5th Amendment right against self-incrimination and did not testify. He made one other brief court appearance, and he was never charged with a crime.

Brown’s firm billed South Gate for $78,000 during the month of Robles’ grand jury appearance, and the fees escalated dramatically in the ensuing months. A review of one heavily edited billing statement obtained by The Times shows that Brown and his associates -- billing from $225 to $405 per hour -- worked 175 hours in March.

Prosecutors said that was after the grand jury proceedings had ended and Robles was not a suspect. The fees eventually topped more than $600,000.

Brown’s bills continued to mount after Robles was charged in April with threatening to kill two state lawmakers. Robles’ critics thought that the city should refuse to pay for his defense.

Under state law, a public entity is not required to provide for the defense of an employee who is charged with a crime unless the illegal act is committed within the scope of the worker’s official duties.

Newhouse, Brown’s co-counsel, argued that the alleged death threats, even if true, were a form of protected political speech and that Robles was acting within his duties as city treasurer when he uttered them.

Using that argument, Robles’ City Council allies passed a resolution authorizing his defense, in a vote that infuriated residents. Two businessmen, with many residents’ support, then went to court and argued that the payment of Robles’ legal fees was illegal.

In August, a judge ordered payments stopped, saying that he was troubled by the city’s argument.

The day before, the city had sent another check, this one for $146,000, to Brown’s law firm.

The threats case, which is still in its early stages, has so far cost taxpayers at least $333,000

Brown’s billing for $425 an hour compares with a fee of $80 an hour allotted to attorneys working for the alternate public defender’s office of Los Angeles County. By comparison, death penalty defenses -- the most complicated and costly of criminal cases -- rarely top $250,000, said Michael F. Yamamoto, former president of California Attorneys for Criminal Justice, an organization of criminal defense lawyers.

“It’s outrageous.... It is way out of line,” said Yamamoto, referring to the fees charged by Brown’s firm. “The highest-paid lawyers in criminal law, they don’t charge that. You can ask any lawyer in the business.”

Brown, when asked about the fees, refused to comment. “I don’t feel like talking about this,” he said in a telephone interview.

“These lawyers should have known that this was an impermissible use of public funds,” said Glenn Rothner, the attorney who won the court order halting payments, and is now seeking the return of the money to the city. “The taxpayers of South Gate need every penny of these vast resources back in the city treasury.”

In Cudahy, the City Council, meeting in nearly empty chambers, has authorized publicly financed defenses without generating controversy.

Prosecutors are investigating whether former Councilman George Perez pressured other members to appoint him city manager. The investigation began in April 2001, when investigators seized thousands of documents and later subpoenaed more than a dozen witnesses.

The city has paid $786,000 so far to six law firms. The biggest chunk, $438,000, has gone to Brown’s firm. The city provided heavily edited billing statements to The Times.

“It’s a lot of money, a lot of money for any city, but we didn’t bring this upon us,” said Perez, adding that he was satisfied with the attorneys’ performance. “They’re doing their job. They keep us informed of what’s going on, and they have reacted favorably to our request to keep a lid on fees.”

The legal disputes have centered on prosecutorial access to a number of documents that were seized, and on the tactics of prosecutors during grand jury proceedings.

Brown accused prosecutors of misconduct for allegedly threatening to jail witnesses who invoked their 5th Amendment rights.

Deputy Dist. Atty. Terry Bork, the lead prosecutor in the Cudahy case, said he could not comment on the accusations because they involve confidential grand jury proceedings.

Bork said Brown’s tactics are part of a larger pattern designed to frustrate and slow the probe, in which no charges have been filed.

Said Bork: “It doesn’t take $800,000 to cooperate with an investigation.”