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Hasselhoff ex hires Birkhead lawyer
LOS ANGELES David Hasselhoff's ex-wife has hired a former lawyer from the Anna Nicole Smith paternity suit to represent her in a Los Angeles custody battle with the Baywatch star. The syndicated T-V show "The Insider" is reporting that Pamela Bach hired Debra Opri in the ongoing custody battle involving their two daughters. Opri represented Larry Birkhead as part of his ultimately successful effort to prove paternity of Smith's seven-month-old daughter, but withdrew from the case in March. Hasselhoff filed for divorce from Bach in January after 16 years of marriage, citing irreconcilable differences. Bach filed her own divorce papers, also citing irreconcilable differences. In May, the court awarded the former couple joint custody of their two teenage daughters. Bach tells "The Insider" that her suit involves child and spousal support payments.
Tort lawyer expected to plead guilty to fraud
A one-time top Miami personal-injury lawyer, charged last year with stealing millions from his clients, is set to plead guilty to fraud charges. BY JAY WEAVER jweaver@MiamiHerald.com Miami's disbarred king of torts, Louis Robles, is expected to plead guilty to federal charges of stealing more than $13 million from clients to pay for his lavish lifestyle -- a private jet and limousine, a mansion in Key Biscayne and apartments in Los Angeles and New York. Robles is set to appear at a plea hearing Friday before U.S. District Judge Alan Gold, according to court records, who could sentence the once-flashy personal-injury lawyer up to 15 years in prison. Robles was facing trial on May 14. He was charged last year in a 41-count mail-fraud indictment accusing him of defrauding upward of 4,500 clients exposed to asbestos.
Judge Sohigian Rebuked by Commission on Judicial Performance
The Commission on Judicial Performance yesterday publicly admonished Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Ronald Sohigian for abusing his authority to impose monetary and terminating sanctions and for treating an attorney in a sarcastic and belittling manner when the lawyer appeared before him. Sohigian committed a clear abuse of judicial authority by following a practice, now discontinued, of issuing orders to show cause requiring plaintiffs who had not appeared at status conferences to appear at an OSC hearing, even though they were represented by counsel and had not been ordered to personally appear at the status conference, the commission said in a 6-2 decision. While the hearings were held on days that the litigants were already scheduled to appear on other matters, the commission said, the litigants and their attorneys still had to bear the unfair burden of responding to them.
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