Legal News

Hearing set for lawyer accused of extorting Dole

By Jonathan Hayter

LOS ANGELES (AP) ? A lawyer accused of taking part in a scheme to extort Dole food company for billions of dollars is under orders to appear at a contempt hearing Wednesday.

Juan Dominguez is accused of bringing fraudulent claims against Dole by men pretending to have been harmed by pesticides on Nicaraguan banana plantations in the 1970s.

Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Victoria Chaney has reported Dominguez to the State Bar and to federal prosecutors for investigation of multiple crimes, including perjury, obstruction of justice, defrauding a court and conspiring to extort a United States company. The judge called the alleged fraud "outrageous and profound."

Dominguez is seeking Chaney's removal from the case, saying in a motion filed by his lawyer last week that he was excluded from some hearings and was not permitted to defend himself.

"Judge Chaney has singled Juan Dominguez out for hostile treatment. She has prejudged his guilt," attorney Michael McCarthy said in the motion.

Chaney dismissed two lawsuits in what she said was a massive scheme to extort Dole with false claims by purported plantation workers. Testimony showed the men were not plantation workers and were recruited by Dominguez and an associate in Nicaragua to lie.

Full post as published by Legal Pad | LA on June 17, 2009 (boomark / email).