Showing posts with label UPL. Show all posts
Showing posts with label UPL. Show all posts

Friday, November 6, 2009

Followup Roundup

Happy Friday! We have a little potpourri of followup stories for you today:

First, remember our friend Chuck? Well, it turns out Chuck is stupid.

Only two days after the LV Sun published their story regarding his fraudulent activities, Chuck fell for an undercover sting that caught him in the act of practicing law without a license. From the LV Sun:
Tuesday’s sting was conducted after the Nevada State Bar asked police to investigate Radosevich for allegedly passing himself off as a licensed lawyer. He has never been one in Nevada and he was disbarred in Colorado and Nebraska.

Two Metro detectives posing as a couple went to Radosevich and asked him for legal help. The detectives paid Radosevich $200 for the services they requested and then disclosed their true identities and cited him.
Attaboy Chuck! If at first you don't succeed ...

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Next, the LV Sun is reporting that our old friend Ed Miley was a member of the State Bar's disciplinary board at the time he choked his dog to death while beating his hot wife in front of their children and firing a handgun in his backyard.

The money quote regarding the matter came from attorney Jeffrey Albregts, chairman of the Southern Nevada board, who said:
I don’t intend to appoint him to anymore disciplinary panels, I don’t think that would be beneficial or fair to everyone involved in those processes.
Good call, Jeff. We've additionally learned that Ed was the "model attorney" chosen to give last year's Bridge The Gap presentation on criminal law. Don't suppose he covered DV or cruelty to animals, did he?

According to the LV Sun, Ed is scheduled to emerge from rehab at the end of the month, and his arraignment in Las Vegas Justice Court has been put off until December 1st.

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Finally, it looks like Judge Cadish may have some competition for that empty U.S. District Court seat. The LV Sun is reporting that Chief Deputy District Attorney Gloria Navarro is on that same "short list" to fill the seat.

Navarro currently works in the district attorney's civil division, and before that she was a deputy special public defender.

Perhaps most importantly, however, she is a she.

Monday, November 2, 2009

Taking The Bar Is For Suckers!

Question: How do you practice law in Clark County for over 10 years without being licensed?

Answer: Just make up a bar number.

Sounds too easy, but that is exactly what Charles Radosevich, Esq. did. According to the LV Sun, Chuck actually has a law degree and has the distinction of having been disbarred in both Colorado (in 1989) and Nebraska (in 1993). From the LV Sun:
He attracted the attention of the Nevada State Bar in 2000, when it got him to sign a court-approved agreement in which he promised not to handle divorces, bankruptcy petitions, immigration-related matters, personal injury cases or any other activity that could be viewed as practicing law.
So, he basically signed an agreement stating that he would not practice law without a license? That had to work, right? Wrong:
Authorities say Radosevich printed business cards and stationery referring to himself as an “attorney at law” specializing in “wills, trusts, estates” and “corporations.”

On legal documents, Radosevich sometimes listed below his name phony state bar identification numbers or numbers the bar had assigned to licensed lawyers. One of the numbers belonged to a deputy attorney general.
That's pretty brazen Chuck, but not as brazen as this:
Eventually, Radosevich set himself up in an office in the upscale Hughes Center, a haven for big-name law firms. Shortly thereafter he even boldly passed himself off as a lawyer in dealings with members of the district attorney’s office.

Those dealings were on behalf of Michelle Geris and her husband, who had hired Radosevich to help them negotiate with the district attorney’s bad check unit the payment of a $128,000 gambling debt that the couple incurred at Green Valley Ranch Station Casino in November 2006. The casino had asked the bad check unit to prosecute Geris.
After Chuck negotiated the debt down to $118, 000, Ms. Geris sent the money to Chuck to pay the DA. You can guess what happened next:
Geris thought her legal and financial obligations had been met, but on Aug. 29, more than two years later, she was arrested near her home in Glendale, Calif., on a warrant obtained by the bad check unit for failing to pay the entire gambling debt.
Surprise! The DA had no record of $59,000 in missing payments. So, why did it take the State Bar so long to catch up with this guy? They blame it on the paralegals:
Radosevich managed to stay outside the reach of the bar by working in the offices of licensed attorneys, Clark [counsel for the State Bar] said. Nevada, unlike some other states, requires no licensing of people who do paralegal work. When alleged misconduct occurs by people at a law office, the bar has authority to go after only the licensed lawyers in the firm, Clark said.
Chuck also once presented a pleading to a client with a district court "Filed" stamp and the forged signature of Judge Elizabeth Gonzalez in order to get the client's money.

On an interesting side note, Chuck is the brother-in-law of recently disbarred attorney Manuel Montelongo.

Check out the article, it's pretty amazing what Chuck was able to pull off by just assigning himself a bar number.