Luster Was Coerced to Flee, Suit Contends

Convicted rapist Andrew Luster was coerced into fleeing the country during his trial last year by his former defense attorney and others who wanted to take possession of his house and personal property, according to a lawsuit filed this week.

The lawsuit, filed by Luster’s current attorney, Harold Greenberg, contends that defense attorney Richard Sherman and at least six others conspired to deceive Luster and defraud him out of his house, antiques and hundreds of thousands of dollars.

The suit also contends that the defendants arranged for Luster, great-grandson of cosmetics legend Max Factor, to run to Mexico at the start of his criminal trial last year.

“During several meetings at Sherman’s office and in court, Sherman

In late January 2003, Luster was convicted on 86 counts of various sexual assaults against three women who went to Luster’s Mussel Shoals beach house and were rendered unconscious by the date-rape drug GHB. At trial, prosecutors presented a pile of evidence against the defendant, including testimony from the three victims and videotapes of the assaults.

Luster, who was captured by a bounty hunter in Puerto Vallarta in June, is serving a 124-year sentence at Salinas Valley State Prison.

Sherman adamantly denied the allegations and described the suit as a ploy by Greenberg to better his client’s chances for appeal.

Luster, 40, lost his right to appeal his convictions when he fled the country. According to Sherman, if Luster can prove to a judge he was coerced into leaving, he might be able to regain those appeal rights.

“The charges are absurd, absolutely untrue,” Sherman said.

Sherman also denied allegations in the suit that he and the other defendants, who include two investigators who worked on the criminal case, met with Luster several times at Sherman’s home and in court to discuss Luster fleeing the country.

Sherman said Luster had been to his home once or twice but that Luster fired him about a month before the trial began.

Greenberg said in the lawsuit that “in exchange for Sherman facilitating Luster’s departure to Mexico,” Luster agreed to deposit $280,000 in a bank account in the Bahamas for Sherman and the others named in the suit.

“Our position is that by panicking him and having him flee to Mexico, they put him in a position in which he would turn over his property,” Greenberg said.

Greenberg contends that after Luster was captured and returned to California, Sherman visited him in prison and struck a deal with Luster to sell his house to Sherman’s friend, Ron Austin. He said Luster signed a quick claim deed and agreed to sell the house for $1,000, with Austin assuming a $531,000 loan on the house.

Luster approved of the sale because he believed half the proceeds would be given to his two children, a 12-year-old boy and a 9-year-old girl, Greenberg said. It was unclear where the remainder of the house profits would go.

The lawsuit contends that Austin transferred ownership of the house Aug. 18, 2003, to Nevada-based Mussel Shoals Investments Inc., allegedly owned by Sherman and the others. The house has yet to be sold by Mussel Shoals Investments, and Luster’s children so far have received no money, he said.

In addition, the lawsuit alleges Luster believed that Sherman and the others would take his antiques and other personal possessions, valued at more than $150,000, and give them to his children. But that never occurred, Greenberg said.

The defendants “engaged in fraud, deceit and misrepresentation in inducing Luster to enter into agreements for services or promises which were never performed, but for which Luster paid and lost substantial sums of money and property,” according to the lawsuit.

Sherman said he was paid in full for his legal services by Luster and had no association with Mussel Shoals Investments.

Sherman also denied any knowledge of the missing antiques and the alleged transfer by Luster of $280,000 to an overseas account.