Attorney Neville Lawrence Johnson
I recently learned—belatedly-that Attorney Neville Lawrence Johnson, had issued a subpoena duces tecum (“SDT,” a subpoena requiring me to produce records) for me to appear at a deposition on December 15, 2014. I say belatedly because he never served me with it. I didn’t even know it existed until yesterday. So this piqued my interest.
I’ve heard of Neville Johnson before, primarily in the context of civil litigation surrounding the Anthony Pellicano case. I was on the criminal defense team for one of Pellicano’s co-defendants (who was adversarial to Pellicano) so his existence certainly could not have escaped me, but not being involved in the civil end of things and being overwhelmed with the magnitude of the criminal defense work involved, he wasn’t high on my radar screen. Anyway, I decided to do some cursory checking up on this guy who issued this SDT but doesn’t bother to serve me with it to see what makes him tick.
I found out some very interesting and intriguing things.
Tony Pellicano in custody
For starters, since I’d first learned of him through his Pellicano litigation involvement, suing Pellicano, the telephone companies, and various lawyers and entertainment industry folks who’d used Pellicano’s services (like Chris Rock for example), I looked at the Pellicano angle. Lo and behold I find out that, according to my old frenemy and sometimes nemesis John Nazarian that Johnson and Nazarian are thick as thieves….and that’s cause for some worry! John wrote in his blog:
(http://desperateexes.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/12/Chris_Rock.jpg) It is reported that all good things come to those who can wait, Neville Johnson, Lawyer was in court with me almost everyday during the Anthony Pellicano trial. Much of the time he had a smile on his face, and why not? Mr. Johnson is representing several victims of the ‘ultimate private investigator’.
Private Investigator John Nazarian
What worries me about that connection? Well some years ago I wrote a letter to the editor of California Lawyer magazine that John took issue with….and he left a threat on my voicemail. A couple days later, after apparently figuring out who I am in the private investigator world, he calls up and leaves another voicemail, a mea culpa apology with his tail between his legs.
Now I’m sure that there’s all sorts of gossip and tall tales about me floating out there too. Macchiavelli wrote some very important wisdom in The Prince [Chapter XVII] when he said that “it’s best to be both loved and feared but if you have to choose, choose to be feared.” So I have a tendency to neither confirm nor deny many of the rumors about me no matter how outrageously false they might be, because they add to my mystique and keep me safe from those who might otherwise want to harm me. At least it makes them think twice, since as James Bond taught us, you only live twice.
John relishes and creates his own public mystique, but the rumors that come to my ears by people reporting to me confidentially as writer of this Detective’s Diary, are neither scary nor flattering, if they’re in fact true and having only the word of the private investigators who told me I don’t actually know one way or the other. Here are a couple of examples where at least I know it as a first hand account from a private investigator colleague:
- According to one very well-respected PI, she took over a case from the mother of a convicted rapist for practically no money, because she’d spent practically her last dollar on John Nazarian to investigate for the defense. According to the story, John never interviewed the Defendant, concluded there was nothing to be done, and abandoned any efforts to clear him. After my friend interviewed the Defendant she went out and located a retail store video tape that showed that precisely at the exact time the rape took place the Defendant was committing a shoplift many miles away.
- One of my colleagues reported that Nazarian hired him to do a “bug sweep” using very primitive equipment (a wide spectrum radio wave detector) at a house, got paid himself by representing to the client that this was a very thorough search for transmitters and wiretaps (which it isn’t) and then stiffed my friend for his fee.
Continuing to delve into the Pellicano litigation that Neville Johnson was involved in litigating, it seemed to be a pattern that some of the cases (both in Pellicano and other unrelated issues) he brought seemed to keep getting thrown out of court for violating the statute of limitations:
- Michael David Sapir vs Tom Cruise, Bert Fields, et al, LA Superior Court Case No. BC 428383
- ROBERT S. REIN, Plaintiff and Appellant, v. PACIFIC BELL TELEPHONE COMPANY, California Second Appellate District (unpublished opinion) B223403, Decided: April 25, 2011
- Long v. Walt Disney Co. (2004)116 Cal.App.4th 868
- Ory v. Country Joe McDonald 68 U.S.P.Q.2d 1812 (C.D.Cal. 2003) (and decision upheld by the 9th Circuit)
Following this line of inquiry I came across a real ugly case which has resulted in a current lawsuit for legal malpractice against Johnson’s firm, Cooper vs Johnson & Johnson LLP, Los Angeles Superior Court Case No. BC 547299, in which the Plaintiff alleges that knowing full well that his contract with the opposing party in litigation handled by Johnson provided for jurisdiction in Tennessee, Johnson first filed suit in California only to dismiss it when confronted by a motion to dismiss for violating the contractual venue provision. Then according to the suit, Johnson filed a federal action in Tennessee….just to dismiss it because he’d blown the statute of limitations. After filing in a Tennessee state court for a third time, it was tossed out for having had two bites of the apple already and resulted in Cooper having to get new counsel and go all the way to the Tennessee Supreme Court to get relief.
Meanwhile according to Cooper’s suit, Johnson & Johnson had cost him over $100,000 in attorney fees and costs for doing what he alleges was fundamentally incompetent work.
While that lawsuit might be enough to make Johnson sweat, I hear that he’s got a couple of other problems coming down the pike. One of those problems concerns his inability to keep his mouth shut in a public place where he can easily be overheard making what would normally be considered “privileged” statements if done in a court of law or in a legal pleading filed with the court. This is similar to the kind of problem that got Bill Cosby into trouble when one of his lawyers publicly denied the accusations made by California Attorney Tamara Green of sexual assault against Cosby. From Green’s slander suit against Cosby:
Defendant Cosby, by and through his agent, authorized representative, and lawyer, Walter M. Phillips, Jr., responded that Defendant Cosby did not know Plaintiff Green, and that Plaintiff Green’s allegations were “absolutely false” and that the incident “did not happen in any way, shape, or form.” Thus by innuendo and effect, Defendant Cosby publically branded Plaintiff Green a liar.
What I’m told is that not only did Johnson open his big mouth about a friend of mine and repeat things that he’d previously only been known to say to the judge, he also talked about me…that’s right, moi….without any regard to how loud he was talking or who was likely to overhear him at a gathering of lawyers….and it’s not like I’m unknown to the legal community.
I do have to hand it to Johnson. He has come a long way since he filed a Chapter 13 Bankruptcy years ago and had fallen on hard times. Fueling the fire for his bankruptcy, were:
- (a) IRS liens for $9,357.77; $2,095.63; $5,629.35; $8,440.68;
- (b) EDD State Tax Liens for $412.77; $41.12; $7,102.72; $961.28; $6,811.61; $3,702.57;
- (c) California Franchise Tax Board Liens for $441.55; $6,841.92;
- (d) Los Angeles County Tax Assessor Liens $231.45; $230.95;
- (e) Abstract of Judgment Finova vs. Johnson $7,179.19;
- (f) Abstract of Judgment Bender vs. Johnson, $11,479.02;
- (g) Abstract of Judgment Comelco vs. Johnson, $55,135.58.
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