The LAW & LAWYERS Blog

Yesterday, disbarred Florida lawyer Graham Kligerman was sentenced to 10 years in federal prison for his role in a fake mortgage foreclosure rescue scheme.

The 34-year-old lawyer is accused of being the closing agent on 57 fraudulent real estate transactions. Banks were deceived into making millions in loans. Worse, homeowners facing foreclosure, who turned to Kligerman to save their homes, actually lost their homes.

Kligerman, who pleaded guilty to wire fraud and conspiracy to commit bank, wire and mail fraud, was also ordered to pay $6.5 million in restitution payments to all the loan processors, homeowners, banks and homebuyers who were cheated by his con.

His defense lawyers argued that his deceptive behavior stemmed from mental illness and the desperation of a failing law practice—not greed. The said that Kligerman only kept $150,000 of the diverted equity and gave the rest to his law clients.

“This court is seeing too many of these types of cases,” the presiding judge said. “There are victims out here who have lost their homes. You should be down on your knees begging for these people to forgive you and do something tangible to make up for what has happened to them. They’re hurting and you’re living comfortably—What’s wrong with that picture?”

Kligerman was disbarred in 2005 after he fabricated court documents, faked a judge’s signature and diverted money to a client from one of his personal trust accounts while pretending it was a payment from defendants.

“I live with regret every day,” Kligerman told a reporter. “To anybody who was hurt, and I know there were many of them, I apologize.”

Mortgage foreclosures are at an all-time high. If you are nearing or facing mortgage foreclosure, be careful who you turn to for help. Like Kligerman, there are many predatory people out there looking to cheat homeowners who are desperate to save their homes.

Consider talking with a bankruptcy lawyer. A Chapter 13 bankruptcy repayment plan has helped thousands of Americans save their homes from foreclosure and get set up on a realistic repayment plan to better manage their debt.

With the economy in such turmoil, times are tough for everybody—even lawyers. Layoffs at law offices are rare but becoming somewhat of a trend as income dwindles.

A Chicago law firm laid off 24 defense lawyers out of its 680 staff and another firm let go of 21 defense attorneys out of their stock of 650, according to a Chicago Tribune story.

But don’t worry—if you’re looking for a lawyer, we have an extensive network and nobody’s going anywhere!

Total Lawyers can help you if you’re looking for a:

• Bankruptcy Lawyer
• Criminal Defense Lawyer
• Personal Injury Lawyer
• DUI Lawyer
• Divorce Lawyer
• Family Law Lawyer
• Estate Layer
• Lemon Law Lawyer

The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) just busted a world-wide spam network responsible for burdening mailboxes with billions of illegal messages encouraging people to purchase unsafe male-enhancement and weight-loss pills.

The FTC froze the assets of two men, one from New Zealand and the other from Texas. Those assets may may go back to consumers who were sold the bogus weight-loss and male-enhancement drugs. [OK, time to insert bad, obvious joke: “I guess everything isn’t always bigger in Texas.”]

The FTC said it received more than 3 million complaints about the related spam. Preliminary estimates are that the spammers made millions of dollars off the bunk drugs.

The spam network used servers in China to host its Web sites and also used a “botnet” (a network of computers that are hijacked to send spam). In addition, it worked in Cyprus and Georgia to process the credit card information. Through this global system, more than 10 billion spam messages were sent each day.

The FTC is working with the FBI on possible criminal charges against the men.

Check out the related Total Lawyer’s article, Virginia Supreme Court Votes in Favor of Spam.

A divided Washington State Supreme Court ruled that victims of domestic violence will have certain job protections if they’re forced to take time off work to look after themselves or their families.

The case at hand involved a federal lawsuit filed by a woman against her employer. She alleged that in 2003, her company demoted her after she returned from taking two weeks off to deal with issues relating to domestic violence.

She said she was forced to take the time off because her then-husband beat her and her child so badly that the child had to be hospitalized and she had to attend court proceedings and move her family into a protective shelter.

Her personal injury lawyer said she was later fired because she protested her demotion. The company said they fired her for falsifying her timecard.

The Supreme Court justices ruled that “the legislative, judicial and executive branches of government have repeatedly declared that it is the public policy of this state to prevent domestic violence by encouraging … victims to escape violent situations, protect children from abuse, report domestic violence to law enforcement, and assist efforts to hold their abusers accountable.”

Last year when the case was pending, the state passed a law that provides “reasonable leave” for domestic violence victims (and victims of sexual assault and stalking) so they can seek medical treatment, social services, shelter and help from the police.

Everyone’s dealt with lost or misplaced luggage on an airplane before.  But few have had the lost luggage experience of Miguel Olaya, a 60-year-old Brooklynite.

Olaya was transporting a coffin with the body of his deceased wife Teresa via an American Airlines flight to Guayaquil, in their native country of Ecuador. However, when he arrived, her body didn’t.  Oyala had to wait four days until American delivered the body, which by then was in such a state of decomposition that his family could no longer hold an open-casket funeral.  American had evidently not properly refrigerated the body as guaranteed by their stated policy on transportation of bodies.

Oyala and his 16-year-old daughter have now filed a lawsuit against American Airlines, seeking an undisclosed sum that reportedly reaches into the millions.  

For more on recent litigation around the U.S., view Total Lawyers articles page.

Former CU Head Football Coach Gary Barnett Still Clueless

The University of Colorado recently settled a historic Title IX lawsuit in which two women had claimed that they had been raped at a party for football recruits and that the school had previously ignored a similar claim with the school’s football recruiting program.

In addition to these disturbing claims, the lawsuit spurred many other scandalous headlines, such as:

• CU football recruits being enticed with strippers, drugs and sex;

• evidence backing the woman’s claims that CU encouraged the policy of showing recruits a “good time”; and

• then-CU Head Football Coach Gary Barnett having very little sensitivity or tact on the matter.

Review the Colorado football recruiting scandal and read more about the 2.85 million settlement in the following article:

University of Colorado Reaches Settlement on Historic Title IX Lawsuit.

Former NYPD counterterrorism detective Anthony Chiofalo has filed a lawsuit in an attempt to get his job back after being fired.

Chiofalo was fired in August from the New York Police department after he failed a random drug screening. He denied using drugs and demanded a hearing and investigation.

During the investigation, Chiofalo’s wife was questioned. She confessed that she wanted for her husband to retire so badly, that in July 2005 she secretly put enough marijuana for about six cigarettes into meatballs that she fed her husband. She had hoped that he would fail a drug test and it would force him to retire.

Well, Chifalo, a 22-year veteran, isn’t ready to retire. He is asking the court to find that his firing was unreasonable and unconstitutional and he wants to be reinstated. He says that the hair sample that got him fired was improperly taken. His lawsuit also seeks back pay with interest, benefits and his seniority back.

According to court documents, Chifalo and his wife have both taken polygraph tests which concluded that they were telling the truth about the marijuana-spiked meatballs.

Chifalo says that his wife had used marijuana to relieve nausea caused by pain medication that she was taking.

Chifalo has support. An administrative judge has recommended that he be reinstated, however, police Commissioner Raymond Kelly rejected the recommendation and a department spokesman said “The officer’s excuse was not credible.”

A woman in Alaska slipped on ice in a parking lot.  You’d have to imagine this kind of thing happens a lot, right?  It’s cold in Alaska and a reasonable person might expect ice.  You either be careful, or you could fall.

Well, this woman sued.  And to my surprise, a U.S. Court of Appeals ruled that she can sue the federal government for failing to remove the snow and ice.  In Alaska.  Where she fell and sustained a personal injury.

Carol Bolt fell outside her U.S. Army apartment at Fort Wainwright, Alaska in April, 1999.  She broke her ankle in the fall and has been permanently disabled ever since.

Lawyers for the federal government have argued that they are not liable, because the U.S. Army base has the has the same status as all other Alaskan municipalities.  Towns and cities in Alaska can not be sued for failing to remove snow and ice that naturally accumulates because, you know, it’s Alaska.

The three judge appeals panel disagreed and ruled that the federal government is basically the landlord in Alaska and therefore they should be required to keep common areas free of the ice and snow there.   Therefore, Bolt’s lawsuit againt the federal government can go forward.

Six men who were on their way home after completing a Marines training exercise on Iraqi culture for the U.S. military at Camp Pendleton say that they were detained and humiliated by employees of American Airlines.

The men, who are of Iraqi descent, have sued American Airlines in the U.S. District Court in Detroit, Michigan, alleging racial discrimination.

In the lawsuit, the men claim that their flight from San Diego to Chicago on August 28 was grounded and they were detained as possible security risks after another passenger on the flight voiced concerns about them.

Some of the men are U.S. citizens, but after  a woman on the plane heard them speaking Arabic she alerted the airline that she was suspicious of them.

After the flight was grounded, the men were detained and they say they were treated like terrorists.

The men took a flight to Chicago on American Airlines the next day without incident.

Someone had better tell Nicolle O’Neill that no matter how original she thinks she looks, she can’t sue someone for stealing her “style.”

In a lawsuit that she filed in Los Angeles Superior Court on October 18, O’Neill claims that socialite and “Simple Life” television show star Paris Hilton “stole” her style. The suit alleges that Hilton’s fashion-related “patens” (sic) and “stiling” (sic) infractions on O’Neill’s style have caused “emotional distress.”

Among the specific infractions cited were Hilton’s theft of O’Neill’s look of exposing her “je-streeng underware (bikiny)” [sic] from under her pants, and as well as her idea of shopping in vintage stores for ’60s-style dresses.

Good luck with that one, Nicole….