Subject:  Re: Fieger/Cox Mess |
Author:
Chris
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Date Posted: 11/11/05 5:28pm
In reply to:
Jill Powell
's message, "Fieger/Cox Mess" on 11/11/05 8:06am
Obscure lawyer is key to Cox case
Shakedown alleged in October meeting
November 11, 2005
BY L.L. BRASIER and PATRICIA MONTEMURRI
FREE PRESS STAFF WRITERS
Lee O'Brien, a lawyer with a criminal record, huddled in a West Bloomfield sports bar on the night of Oct. 14 with a top aide to Michigan Attorney General Michael Cox.
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O'Brien, according to Cox, was there for a shakedown.
While meeting with Cox staffer Stu Sandler, the attorney general says, O'Brien brought a message from attorney Geoffrey Fieger: Back away from an investigation of questionable political spending by Fieger or they'd reveal that Cox had cheated on his wife.
That night, O'Brien became a key player in a high-stakes political tsunami that threatens the high-flying careers of Cox, regarded as an ambitious player in the state Republican Party, and Fieger, the flamboyant attorney who parlayed a once-small Southfield law firm into a legal juggernaut after becoming known as the legal defender of suicide advocate Dr. Jack Kevorkian.
Fieger and his attorneys deny any blackmail attempt was made. They said if O'Brien made threats, he acted on his own.
The salacious political drama erupted Wednesday when Cox, with his wife at his side, staged an emotional news conference to announce the affair and to reveal the bigger shocker -- that O'Brien, acting on Fieger's behalf, allegedly tried to blackmail Cox.
Oakland County prosecutors are expected to announce by early next week whether they will charge anyone as a result of the allegations, which were investigated by the sheriff after Cox reported the alleged scheme to them.
O'Brien's attorney A. Vince Colella acknowledged that his client discussed Fieger's campaign-finance case with Cox's office, but only in the interest of mediating it because he is friends with Fieger and Cox. He said O'Brien never threatened Cox.
Colella said Fieger and O'Brien are friends -- which Fieger denied.
"I have never socialized with Lee O'Brien," Fieger said Thursday. "I've never had a drink with Lee O'Brien; I've never been to his house."
Richard Steinberg, a lawyer for Fieger, said Thursday that O'Brien had referred a few lawsuits to Fieger and received a referral fee for the work.
Steinberg declined to say how much O'Brien was paid, but said it's standard practice for a referring lawyer to get about one-ninth of any cash settlement.
Fieger has made millions as a trial lawyer in high-profile cases. Steinberg said O'Brien never worked for Fieger's firm. Colella said O'Brien held a political fund-raiser for Cox several years ago that Fieger attended.
Neil Rockind, another attorney for Fieger, said Cox's allegations were absurd.
Since spring, Cox's office has been investigating Fieger's role in a $450,000 TV ad campaign that urged people to vote against Supreme Court Justice Stephen Markman in elections last year.
Fieger did not file papers acknowledging he had paid for the ads until seven months after the election -- well beyond the reporting deadline.
Fieger has fought Cox's efforts in court and scored a recent victory when Ingham County Circuit Judge James Giddings issued a temporary restraining order, which had the effect of bringing Cox's investigation to a halt.
That order was lifted Thursday by the state Court of Appeals, but many of the restrictions remain in place pending additional hearings.
"We're winning this case," Rockind said, adding, "which makes Cox's statements even more preposterous."
Cox first went to the Oakland County Sheriff's Office with his allegations on Oct. 14, according to an official familiar with the case.
Later that day, the official said, sheriff's investigators wired Sandler for his first meeting with O'Brien at Champps, the West Bloomfield sports bar.
A second meeting between Sandler and O'Brien, again with Sandler wired, was held two days later, the official said. About two weeks after Cox first contacted the sheriff, Sandler met with O'Brien and Fieger at a steakhouse, and once again Sandler was wearing a wire, the source said.
After the initial meeting at Champps on Oct. 14, O'Brien was arrested on suspicion of drunken driving in Farmington Hills, Police Chief William Dwyer said Thursday.
O'Brien, 39, refused to take any sobriety tests or take a preliminary breath test. Blood-alcohol tests, done at Botsford Hospital around 10:30 p.m., showed a blood-alcohol level of 0.24%, police said, three times the level at which a driver can be convicted of drunken driving in Michigan.
He lost his license after an earlier drunken-driving stop in Novi.
He was arrested again in 2003 and charged with sexually assaulting a woman living with him and his wife in their West Bloomfield home. He pleaded no contest to indecent exposure, a misdemeanor.
He was placed on six months' probation in late 2003, but was arrested a few months later by Dearborn police.
According to police reports, O'Brien and a male companion were at the Silver Criket bar on Michigan Avenue on April 16, 2004, drunk and unruly, and verbally abusing the wait staff. When the two men went behind the bar to pour their drinks, the manager called the police. He was arrested on charges of trespassing, disorderly conduct and providing a false identification. He registered a 0.18% on a Breathalyzer, police said.
After the incident, O'Brien was cited in Oakland County Circuit Court for violating his probation. He is expected to appear before the Attorney Discipline Board on Jan. 6 because of the probation violation, and faces disciplinary action.
A clerk at the district court in Dearborn said records show that O'Brien did not appear for his court dates on the Silver Criket incident.
Attorney Colella said O'Brien was acquitted in the Novi drunken-driving case, but that he had to petition the court to get his license back. Colella said his client was acquitted of disorderly conduct and convicted of trespassing.
Contact L.L. BRASIER at 248-858-2262 or brasier@freepress.com.
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