Roasting Gage and the fallout

George Knapp over at Las Vegas City Life pretty much slams Noel Gage and the Review-Journal in a piece calling into question why no one in the media is asking Mr. Gage tough questions about the allegations he bilked his clients for millions.

The City Life story reports:

TOO BAD THE GALA EVENT slated for Piero's fine Italian restaurant had to be cancelled, or at least postponed. Someone apparently convinced attorney Noel Gage that it might invite some bad karma to hold a victory celebration even though he still faces a second prosecution for allegedly ripping off millions of dollars from his injured clients.

Of course, if you have read any of Gage's press clippings in the
Review-Journal, you might think he's already won, instead of being on the bad
end of an 8-4 hung jury. . .

Fortunately for Gage, he hasn't spoken to anyone who might ask tough questions about the convenient fairy tales he has manufactured in any of his hard-hitting interviews . . . According to Gage, the U.S. attorney's office offered him a deal during the first trial, a deal that would require him to "testify falsely against other individuals." Just like the brave defender of justice he portrays in his TV ads, Gage says he told the feds to stick their offer where the sun doesn't shine.

Of course, Gage wasn't asked by the paper to defend his claim. He said it, and that was enough. Gage says there's no way he will ever plead guilty or accept a deal because he's completely innocent. Is this the same Gage who went to the government on his own and proposed an arrangement in which he would, in fact, plead guilty, so long as he would receive no fine or jail time or even have to pay back any of the millions he took from his clients? That Noel Gage? The guy who offered to plead guilty just a few weeks ago, so long as he got away with no punishment? Prosecutors had almost no interest in dealing with Gage, especially making a deal that would allow him to waltz off into the sunset with nary a wrist slap.

Kudos to Mr. Knapp. We've long needed some decent reporting on the Gage trial--someone to clear out the PR crap. Even if the article is a little over the top, someone needs to point out that Gage is not a frontier hero fighting for the people, but an alleged crook who stole from clients who came to him for help.

Meanwhile, Gage trial testimony from the discredited Dr. Venger is leading to appeals in cases where Dr. Venger's testimony was the basis of a verdict. His credibility was so destroyed in the Gage trial that all of his prior testimony is being called into question. (Review-Journal)

[thanks to NK for the tip]