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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsDomestic Terrorists Dump Missing Lawyer
On Aug. 23, Pierce was hired by accused insurrectionist Deborah Lynn Lee. As The Daily Beast reported this week, he hasnt been seen since. Lee has now apparently had enough, telling the judge in her case on Thursday shed rather be assigned a public defender than continue working with Pierce. She is the third Jan. 6 defendant to cast Pierce aside, and the first to let him go in the wake of his suddenand shockingvanishing act.
When Pierce skipped another clients court hearing on Aug. 24, his law partner, a 30-year-old law school grad named Ryan Marshall who is not licensed to practice law anywhere in the U.S., showed up in Pierces place.
Marshall told the judge that Pierce was in the hospital with COVID-19, on a ventilator and unresponsive. A few hours later, a colleague of Piercesor a friend, depending on who you asksaid in a statement that Pierce, 49, was in the hospital with what he thought might have been COVID, but was actually dehydration and exhaustion. But Marshall had previously also claimed that Pierce had been in some sort of accident, and another person close to Pierce said that he had in fact been hospitalized but was not on a ventilator.
Since then, Marshall, who is under criminal indictment in Pennsylvania on 15 felony charges stemming from an alleged scheme that bilked an elderly widow out of $86,000, has repeatedly feigned ignorance about the specifics of Pierces condition. Pierce is sick, Marshall insisted to The Daily Beast, but said he hadnt seen him and only knew what I was told.
Marshall said he had located a licensed lawyer to assist with Pierces Jan. 6 caseload, but that she was a bankruptcy attorney, not a criminal defense attorney, who is permitted to practice in Alabama and Florida. However, this person is also sick, and could not appear until a later date, Marshall said.
Lee told Magistrate Judge Zia Faruqui that she wanted him off her case and would prefer to be represented by public defender Cara Halverson.
With Pierce AWOL, at least 17 Jan. 6 defendants are now, effectively, without counsel.
https://news.yahoo.com/capitol-rioters-turn-lawyer-gone-203211252.html
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Prof. Toru Tanaka
(1,956 posts)and he is desperate for money. These Keystone Kops stories just seem to write themselves.
Hugh_Lebowski
(33,643 posts)in a cheap motel somewhere on the Yucatan Peninsula.
Baked Potato
(7,733 posts)Hugh_Lebowski
(33,643 posts)littlemissmartypants
(22,633 posts)Does anyone expect foul play or is everyone just shrugging and moving on? He's either on the run or dead I guess. Sad no one's really looking for him.
The Daily Beast has tried unsuccessfully to reach Pierce via phone, text, and email. His office numbers are out of service, and a contact number he submitted with his last court filing goes directly to an unidentified voicemail. A cell phone number listed for Pierce on his defunct firms website connects to a womans voice saying, This is no longer the number for John Pierce. Please do not leave a message.
Hortensis
(58,785 posts)make his life sound like something of a hot mess. His assistant kept changing explanations for his disappearance, and hot mess syndrome seems a lot more likely to me to be the explanation than victim of foul play, unless it's his own. (And who and where's "Bainbridge" of Pierce Bainbridge and where are the rest of the "team of premier litigators"?)
"Virage SPV, a litigation funder, filed a notice to intervene in the Katz, Kane & Co. filing. Pierces law firm owes Virage SPV not less than $59 million, according to that motion, which argued that it had a first-priority interest against all Pierce Bainbridges assets. The court rejected Virage SPVs argument in April."
See also:
ABAJournal.com: Pierce Bainbridge managing partner goes on leave amid internal probe
ABAJournal.com: Former Pierce Bainbridge paralegal sues firm and ex-partner over alleged sex assault
ABAJournal.com: After his last firm dissolved, lawyer reinvents himself as conservative civil liberties warrior
Regarding the fees at least a few attorneys are charging 9/1 defendants: "Patrick Leduc, a Florida lawyer who represented another defendant from the Capitol riot, says he doesnt know what Pierce charged for the work, but hes heard of some attorneys requiring retainers of at least $100,000. I just feel awful for these defendants. Several have probably invested their entire life savings, Leduc says."
littlemissmartypants
(22,633 posts)I can't decide if I feel bad for his now former clients, or not.
Hortensis
(58,785 posts)Know what you mean. I hope none of the more clueless-idiot "patriots" with fairly minor charges got rooked into paying huge fees to predatory shysters. Hopefully the judges would intervene if they did. But that attorney seemed to think some of the over 600 defendants may have been cleaned out.
Chainfire
(17,536 posts)They make me sick and I have never met one of them.
zuul
(14,624 posts)in the hospital but his associates dont want to admit it. Cuz Covid is a hoax, dontcha know!