Edhat StaffBy edhat staff
Two former clients of attorney Michael Avenatti filed a lawsuit Monday against him, his law firms, and lawyers associated with him in Santa Barbara Superior Court.
The lawsuit alleges professional negligence and breach of fiduciary duty over the mishandling of a settlement, misuse of settlement funds, and conflicts of interest. It was filed by Cappello & Noël LLP on behalf of William Parrish and Timothy Fitzgibbons.
In 2006, Parrish and Fitzgibbons (plaintiffs) left their employment at the Goleta-based FLIR Systems to start a new business venture and were subsequently sued by FLIR. The former employees won the trial against FLIR and retained three law firms, including Eagan Avenatti LLP and Stoll, Nussbaum & Polakov (SNP) to sue their former employer for malicious prosecution.
The case settled and the parties and lawyers all agreed that the settlement funds would be wired directly into the Eagan Avenatti (EA) trust account. Robert Stoll of SNP objected to the deposit of settlement funds, including the attorney fee portion, into EA’s trust account, and EA did not advise the plaintiffs that they faced potential legal exposure from Stoll and SNP. The complaint alleges that without the plaintiff’s knowledge, Avenatti and EA transferred the settlement funds from the EA trust account into the EA operating account, refused to pay Stoll any attorney fees, and, instead, spent the money.
In a very layered and complicated case, the plaintiffs were then represented by Avenatti and his firm over the mishandling of the settlement after Stoll sued to collect his fees. The lawsuit alleges that Avenatti and his firm failed to give competent advice, failed to disclose numerous conflicts of interest, failed to keep the clients informed of significant developments, failed to account for the missing funds, and failed to return the plaintiffs’ complete files after being terminated in late summer 2018.
The plaintiffs are seeking compensatory and punitive damages and attorneys’ fees.
The full complaint is available below:
Some times you just gotta love junk yard dog lawyers like self-professed Barry Cappello who saw a need to be one when he came to town, according to an early news story on him.
This lawyer doesn’t seem too bright, thinking he and his firm would get away with such thievery.
Capello is a top drawer class action and plaintiffs’ lawyer. There’s no money left but Avenatti would beg to pay Capello now if he could before the videotaped depositions begin.
Holy Trinity…
My perfectly valid comment was deleted because some folks who downvoted couldn’t handle that I pointed out he has more appearances on CNN than any other guest. Around 300 between cnn and msnbc. I also pointed out he’s uncollectible and owes $2m to ex wife, $1m to IRS, $10m to an ex partner, $2m to a client he defrauded and is paying a ton to defend himself from a dozen felonies on two coasts in federal court. Won’t be anything left for capello to collect
Well, they turned out to be accurate, and Edhat wouldn’t have had an issued due to Section 230 (which needs a complete overhaul itself).
Well… I suppose if edhat has a time machine to travel into the future then sure, they’d know it wouldn’t be an issue. But otherwise if a publication is a-okay with keeping a comment on their platform alleging someone abuses their spouse and other felonies, they better have a good lawyer.
I remember when many thought Avenetti was a courageous hero. He certainly had his five minutes of fame on the left wing “news” outlets. It’s truly remarkable to see just how corrupt he is and the extent to which so many “news” organizations utterly failed to verify the many salacious and false allegations that he made. The truth usually emerges sooner or later, but it didn’t happen soon enough for mr. Avenetti.