Roundup plaintiffs' attorneys plead guilty in $200M extortion scheme(justice.gov)
justice.gov
Roundup plaintiffs' attorneys plead guilty in $200M extortion scheme
https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/virginia-attorneys-plead-guilty-orchestrating-200-million-extortion-scheme-targeting
10 comments
If you know attorneys who are conducting themselves in this manner you should report them to the bar because they shouldn’t have a license to practice law. This conduct was far outside the bounds of their ethical obligations and is not at all what happens in a normal civil suit.
It's the same racket Michael Avenatti was caught doing to Nike.
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/michael-avenatti-guilty...
These are high profile examples, and they might be the "smoke" to a "fire" somewhere most people don't yet know about.
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/michael-avenatti-guilty...
These are high profile examples, and they might be the "smoke" to a "fire" somewhere most people don't yet know about.
It's extremely rare for an attorney to get disbarred. Pretty much the only time someone will be reliably disbarred is if they steal a client's funds.
No it’s not. Settling a lawsuit where money goes to the plaintiffs is normal. A lawyer offering to switch sides and knowingly create a conflict of interest using a pretext of a consulting agreement violates a lawyer duty of loyalty to their client. Agreeing to do that in exchange for payment under threat of harm to the company is extortion that is totally different than simply bringing a case in court where there is a venue for objective judgment.
Wow. Monsanto and Bayer, probably? Is this where the attourneys have clients that actually got cancer and they were going to pocket the money and not give the cancer victim anything? I do hope they rot.
[deleted]
We've changed the URL from https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/virginia-attorneys-plead-guil... to an article with more background. Both are worth reading.
Can you change it back? The justice.gov link is much newer and contains significant new information. For example, the Reuters article emphasizes that the defendant was not yet guilty and a second person hadn’t yet been charged. However, the justice.gov link says both are now defendants, and both pleaded guilty.
Edit: This is already causing confusion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23622823 Flagging for your attention.
Edit: This is already causing confusion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23622823 Flagging for your attention.
Ok, I've changed it back from https://www.reuters.com/article/us-otc-masstorts/doj-charges.... That was from Dec 2019 while the OP is from June 2020. Sorry!
What were they expecting? That Monsanto (presumably "Company 1") would give then 200 million and hope that they'll call off the lawsuit? What's preventing them from suing anyways? If the legal threat is real, what's preventing others from suing?
They already won a $289 million judgment in California and were threatening to leverage that result into more lawsuits.
I imagine that because their the CA case had some unusual facts, they must have thought it would be easier to switch-sides for a small fee rather than trying to catch lightning in a bottle again.
I imagine that because their the CA case had some unusual facts, they must have thought it would be easier to switch-sides for a small fee rather than trying to catch lightning in a bottle again.
It’s hard to be sure, but it sounds like they were lower-level lawyers at the firm that won the Johnson case and wouldn’t have directly benefited monetarily from winning additional cases. Seemingly, they were offering to ruin the case by deliberately botching the tasks that their firm assigned to them, presumably without the firm’s knowledge.
It sounds like the defendants were lower-level lawyers at the firm that was initially suing Company 1. (According to one of the articles, it seems they were later fired and started their own firm.) Rather than offering to drop the case, they were allegedly offering to throw the case by deliberately botching certain tasks that their firm was assigning to them, presumably without the firm’s knowledge.
King of Torts IRL
"Timothy Litzenburg has spent the bulk of his career battling the manufacturers of cancer-causing products. That kind of undertaking is akin to David v. Goliath, but he has found that when the truth is on your side, the playing field becomes more level."
https://thenationaltriallawyers.org/profile-view/Timothy/Lit...
"Timothy Litzenburg has spent the bulk of his career battling the manufacturers of cancer-causing products. That kind of undertaking is akin to David v. Goliath, but he has found that when the truth is on your side, the playing field becomes more level."
https://thenationaltriallawyers.org/profile-view/Timothy/Lit...
That is kind of surprising that a lawyer with so much battle experience would fall in such a simple way. Got carried away by greed?
I’m assuming he wrote that himself or had it written on his behalf. There aren’t a lot of facts available, but from reading the two articles (justice.gov, Reuters), it sounds like his level of experience is a matter of debate.
>That said, the criminal complaint against Litzenburg reads like a vindication of all of the ugly criticisms that mass tort defendants throw at plaintiffs’ lawyers. Tort reformers could not have made up a story that casts plaintiffs’ lawyers in a more damning light than the government’s allegations against Litzenburg.
Tort reform is important. That being said, there needs to be a way to punish companies when they do bad stuff. Unfortunately, class action lawsuits are often viewed by the corporations as a cost of doing business, and most of the money goes to the trial lawyers, and the consumers end up getting a $5 voucher or even less.
I propose an alternative to class action law suits. Singapore style caning of the the C-Suite and board of directors for corporate malfeasance. I think consumers who have been scammed would feel more that justice was done than if they got say 1 month's free credit monitoring. In addition, it would align incentives for the management if their ass was literally on the line. It would also be cheap to administer and would not contribute to our prison population.
Tort reform is important. That being said, there needs to be a way to punish companies when they do bad stuff. Unfortunately, class action lawsuits are often viewed by the corporations as a cost of doing business, and most of the money goes to the trial lawyers, and the consumers end up getting a $5 voucher or even less.
I propose an alternative to class action law suits. Singapore style caning of the the C-Suite and board of directors for corporate malfeasance. I think consumers who have been scammed would feel more that justice was done than if they got say 1 month's free credit monitoring. In addition, it would align incentives for the management if their ass was literally on the line. It would also be cheap to administer and would not contribute to our prison population.
I can’t see this standing up in court. Is there any case law saying that threats of legal action can be construed as extortion? There are thousands of legal demand letters that go out everyday.
They already pleaded guilty; the link was changed to an outdated article. (See comment below by dang.)
The extortion is this:
1. They were responsible, in part, for suing Company 1, presumably in the high-profile Monsanto lawsuits.
2. They offered Company 1 a deal: if Company 1 bribed them for $200M, they would deliberately throw the case.
3. Company 1 reported that misconduct to the DoJ.
4. Assuming Company 1 is Monsanto, the original lawsuits were successful; one case in particular awarded two plaintiffs $1B each.
The extortion here is that the lawyers were offering to throw the case and cost Company 1 only $200M instead of (presumably) $2B+, plus legal fees.
The extortion is this:
1. They were responsible, in part, for suing Company 1, presumably in the high-profile Monsanto lawsuits.
2. They offered Company 1 a deal: if Company 1 bribed them for $200M, they would deliberately throw the case.
3. Company 1 reported that misconduct to the DoJ.
4. Assuming Company 1 is Monsanto, the original lawsuits were successful; one case in particular awarded two plaintiffs $1B each.
The extortion here is that the lawyers were offering to throw the case and cost Company 1 only $200M instead of (presumably) $2B+, plus legal fees.
Interesting, the real crime is that they weren’t acting in the best faith for their clients. Still doesn’t make sense as an extortion case unless soliciting bribes falls under extortion.
The federal extortion statute, most specifically 18 USC 875(d), seems quite applicable here: “(d)Whoever, with intent to extort from any person, firm, association, or corporation, any money or other thing of value, transmits in interstate or foreign commerce any communication containing any threat to injure the property or reputation of the addressee or of another or the reputation of a deceased person or any threat to accuse the addressee or any other person of a crime, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than two years, or both.”
Bribery, on the other hand, under federal law requires that the person being bribed is a public official, outside of special provisions relating to sporting contests and port security (separate provisions, not common to those two circumstances.) Well, and one other inverted scenario involving Members of Congress, etc., bribing private entities by using official acts to sway hiring decisions on partisan political grounds. But nothing that seems applicable to the kind of thing going on here.
Bribery, on the other hand, under federal law requires that the person being bribed is a public official, outside of special provisions relating to sporting contests and port security (separate provisions, not common to those two circumstances.) Well, and one other inverted scenario involving Members of Congress, etc., bribing private entities by using official acts to sway hiring decisions on partisan political grounds. But nothing that seems applicable to the kind of thing going on here.
You may have heard of a guy named Michael Avenatti...
He didn’t threaten legal action. He would need a victim to represent if it was legal action.
> He demanded that Nike hire him to conduct an internal investigation into its criminal exposure, prosecutors said, contending that he had alternatively requested $22.5 million to buy his silence and resolve potential claims by a youth basketball coach whom he said he represented.
The only thing grosser than cancer chemical companies are lawyers
I often see comments like this on Reddit, not on HN. HN comments that state an emotion usually go on to explain why they have a particular emotion. How about rewriting your comment to better fit with HN style?
Sounds like David Boies looking to extort people with Epstein sex tapes. Over to you, Money Stuff:
https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2019-12-02/the-bl...
https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2019-12-02/the-bl...
When you do it to Monsanto, it's not a crime.
The biggest issue with American civil law is cost to resolve disputes. It's obscene.