Philip Layfield—who was suspended from law practice by the State Bar of California after he failed to show up for his Jan. 24 disciplinary hearing—was arrested in New Jersey last month and is facing trial in federal court here on a charge of mail fraud. The single count is in connection with his pocketing settlement funds belonging to Josephine Nguyen, who was a client of the erstwhile law firm of Layfield & Barrett. She was to receive 60 percent of a $3.9 million settlement of her personal injury claim, amounting to $2,315,000.

According to State Bar charges, Layfield “willfully and intentionally misappropriated at least $2,314,942.20 ($2,315,000-$57.85)” of Nguyen’s share. However, Mark E. Speidel, a special agent in the Department of Homeland Security, said in an affidavit is support of an arrest warrant that she was given an “advance” of $25,000.

The State Bar Office of Chief Trial Counsel filed disciplinary charges against on Sept. 20 alleging that the attorney misappropriated more than $3.4 million from his clients.

Layfield acknowledges moving funds from the attorney-client trust account to his erstwhile firm’s general fund, but insists he thought there was enough money in the coffers to cover the clients’ shares of settlements. He ascribes blame to others, including the State Bar’s prosecutor.

Oral argument was held April 11 before the State Bar Court Review Department and the matter was submitted. Metoyer is contesting discipline imposed on Sept. 15 based on client abandonment, failure to obey a court order, and failing to report a sanction imposed on her.

Metoyer was placed on probation for one year and ordered suspended from law practice for one month.

She became emotionally upset when, after announcing ready in a case on Jan, 15, 2015, Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Elizabeth Hunter declined to release her to go to a previously unmentioned doctor’s appointment the next day. The judge let her use the private bathroom in her chambers to compose herself but Metoyer fled, with the judge, the prosecutor, three witnesses and her client waiting in the courtroom and prospective jurors in the hallway.

A supervisor in the Public Defender’s Office eventually contacted the judge and secured her agreement to allow Metoyer to take the following morning off to have an MRI, but Hunter ordered that Metoyer return to the courtroom immediately. She refused to go there, and another lawyer was sent.

On April 10, 2015, Hunter imposed sanctions on Metoyer in the amount of $1,500. Metoyer did not abide by the statutory obligation to report to the State Bar any sanction of $1,000 or more.

The county paid the sanction, as well as the costs of an appeal to the Court of Appeal, which failed, and paid her attorney fees in the State Bar proceeding.

Proceedings in the disciplinary matter of Los Angeles’s former city attorney have started and stopped repeatedly, with one trial continuance after another. The proceeding has been stayed and a status conference is set for Sept. 24.

Trutanich, as the deputy district attorney prosecuting a capital murder case in 1985 and 1986, put on a witness who testified that she witnessed defendant fatally shooting a victim from a van. The witness said she was in a station wagon being driven by one Jean Rivers.

The Office of Chief Trial Counsel is alleging that Trutanich “knew, or was grossly negligent in not knowing” that the testimony was false insofar as the identity of the driver, whose actual name was Arlene McKay. In failing to divulge the driver’s true identity, as well as her home address, Trutanich breached his constitutional obligation of making disclosures to the defense of potentially exculpatory evidence, as required by Brady v. Maryland (1963) 373 U.S. 83, it is asserted.

The initial notice of charges was dated Feb. 9. An amended notice was filed July 10.

The current charges are that Trutanich:
•By committing a Brady violation, ran afoul of Business and Professions Code §6068(a) (duty to “support the Constitution and laws of the United States and of this state”).

•Suppressed evidence “in willful violation of Rules of Professional Conduct, rule 5-220.”

•Committed “an act(s) of moral turpitude, dishonesty, or corruption in willful violation of Business and Professions Code, section 6106.”

•By “intentionally or with gross negligence” failing to correct the testimony, “committed an act involving moral turpitude, dishonesty or corruption in willful violation of Business and Professions Code §6106.”

Trutanich—who served as city attorney from 2009-13 and is now at Tucker Ellis LLP in Los Angeles—is also charged with allowing a police detective to testify falsely at a pretrial hearing in the same murder case. Trutanich has repeatedly denied the charges.

He is represented by ethics lawyer David C. Carr of San Diego. The Office of Chief Trial Counsel has three lawyers assigned to the case: Senior Trial Counsel Eli D. Morgenstern, co-counsel Edward O. Lear and deputy co-counsel Caitlin Marie Elen.