Release of Philip Layfield on bail—with the amount set at $450,000—appears imminent. His appointed counsel, Anthony M. Solis, advises:
“The order for release has been issued—the terms will be met shortly.”
Layfield is facing trial on charges of mail fraud and money laundering.
The defendant, apprehended in New Jersey in March and incarcerated since then, had previously fled to Costa Rica. Trial is set for Aug. 14.
The prosecution is in connection with Layfield’s pocketing of 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 $2.3 million.
Layfield was suspended from law practice by the State Bar of California after he failed to show up for his Jan. 24 disciplinary hearing. The State Bar Office of Chief Trial Counsel filed disciplinary charges against him 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 prosecutor.
U.S. District Judge Michael W. Fitzgerald of the Central District of California on June 18 ordered that Layfield be released on bond, pending a setting of conditions. However, complications ensued.
A cousin and his wife in Delaware offered to put up a $125,000 lien on their house—but then backed out.
Layfield then said that one Steve Massas would deposit $50,000. Next, he said there was some miscommunication with Massas, who was only willing to make an unsecured pledge.
Assistant U.S. Attorneys Mark Aveis and Eddie A. Jauregui of their office’s Major Frauds Section said in their July 20 opposition to Layfield’s proposed second modification of the terms of release:
“Both the government and the Pretrial Officer believe that there is a substantial difference between a cash deposit and a mere promise, especially in light of the overall mix of sureties as ordered.”
They added:
“Beyond the fact that it seems unusual that defendant, an officer of the Court, cannot seem to find any colleagues, friends, or family members to post substantial sums (except, relatively speaking, his father), the ever-moving goal post in respect of defendant’s proffered sureties and position regarding bond tends to support a strong inference that people who know far more about defendant than the Court, government counsel, or even defense counsel are skittish and believe defendant may flee or violate his bond terms.”
However, Fitzgerald approved the change.
Layfield’s father is making a cash deposit of $100,000; his aunt and uncle in Delaware are putting up a deed to their property worth $250,000; Massas and Layfield’s wife (who is on welfare) are making unsecured $50,000 pledges.

The State Bar Court Review Department, in a decision on July 5, relieved Metoyer from a Sept. 15 order by Hearing Judge Donald F. Miles that she be suspended from law practice for 30 days. But the department found, in an opinion by Review Judge W. Kearse McGill, that a public reproval is appropriate based on her disobedience to a court order.
The department rejected Miles’s determination that Metoyer abandoned a client, Matiwos Ghebrehiwot, despite the view of Div. Four of this district’s Court of Appeal that “there is support” for the finding of abandonment by Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Elizabeth Hunter. In a July 27, 2016, opinion by Court of Appeal Presiding Justice Norman Epstein, the appeals court affirmed a $1,500 sanction imposed on the attorney by Hunter.
The facts, as set forth in the opinion by Review Judge W. Kearse McGill, amplify upon, and to an extent slightly deviate from, those stated by Epstein and McGill.
It was on Jan, 15, 2015, that Metoyer announced “ready” in what was expected to be a brief trial in a child molestation case; the case was sent to Hunter’s department; at the end of a conference in chambers, the deputy PD mentioned having an appointment the next morning for an MRI (based on having recently suffered a back ache). The judge told her to reschedule her appointment, and after the deputy became emotionally upset, Hunter consented to her using the private bathroom in her chambers to compose herself. Sneaking out through another courtroom, Metoyer fled to her office, with the judge, the prosecutor, three witnesses and her client waiting in the courtroom, and with prospective jurors sitting in the hallway.
As recounted by McGill, suspense ended about 45 minute later when a supervisor in the Public Defender’s Office, Rhonda May-Rucker, telephoned Hunter, beseeching her to permit Metoyer to go to the medical appointment in the morning; Hunter relented but ordered that Metoyer come back to court to put the matter on the record. As McGill tells it:
“After the call ended, Rucker told Metoyer that the judge approved the time off and was expecting her back in court. Metoyer did not respond. When Rucker asked her if she was going to return to court, Metoyer said ‘No, I’m not.’ When Rucker asked her why not, Metoyer responded, ‘I just can’t take this anymore.’ Rucker tried to get Metoyer to explain what she meant and told her that if she did not return to court it would appear as if she were abandoning her client Metoyer stated she was upset about her credibility being called into question and thought ‘everyone’ was ‘out to get [her].’ ”
McGill declared:
“After independently reviewing the record…, and giving due weight to our disciplinary law, the findings of the courts of record, and the hearing judge, we find Metoyer culpable of violating a court order, but not for improperly withdrawing from employment. We find that her misconduct, precipitated by an unexpected and severe emotional episode, warrants a departure from the presumed sanction of actual suspension given Metoyer’s dedicated, lengthy, and, thus far, blemish-free career with the public defender’s office and the lack of client harm. We find that a public reproval with conditions, rather than the 30-day actual suspension recommended by the hearing judge, is appropriate discipline that protects the public, the profession, and the courts.”
In explaining the department’s rejection of Miles’s finding that Metoyer abandoned her client, McGill related her side of the story.
“She contends that she suffered severe emotional distress; she left the courtroom to compose herself during a brief restroom break; she did not return because she did not want her client and the courtroom participants to see her crying; and, after she sought guidance from her supervisor, she was removed from her client’s case, and another public defender was immediately assigned. The gravamen of her argument is that she did not intend to withdraw from representation and no foreseeable prejudice to her client existed because he remained a client, without interruption, of the public defender’s office.”
McGill noted that the Office of Chief Trial Counsel pointed to Hunter’s finding of abandonment which the Court of Appeal upheld.
He drew attention to State Bar Rule 3-700(A)(2) which provides that “A member shall not withdraw from employment until the member has taken reasonable steps to avoid reasonably foreseeable prejudice to the rights of the client….” and said:
“[W]e find no foreseeable prejudice to her client. Metoyer’s brief absence from the courtroom prior to trial starting and before another public defender was substituted into the case, even if it resulted in ‘unnecessary delay,’ is insufficient to establish that Ghebrehiwot was placed in a position that could have prejudiced his case. At all times, he was represented by the public defender’s office, and the record fails to show any evidence that Judge Hunter would have denied a continuance for Metoyer’s replacement to become prepared for this serious criminal case; in fact, a continuance was granted. Ghebrehiwot, facing a potential six-year sentence, ultimately entered into a plea deal with probation—an outcome which we have no evidence to conclude was unfavorable to him.”
The Review Department upheld Miles’s finding that Metoyer violated Business & Professions Code §6068(o)(3) by failing to report to the State Bar the sanction Hunter imposed on her

A status conference was held last Thursday and the case was ordered to trial.
Trutanich on May 10 filed a motion for a dismissal of charges against him. On June 5, his motion was granted for extra time to file a reply to opposition. On July 2 he moved for an order permitting him to exceed the page limit, which was granted July 19.
Proceedings in the disciplinary matter of Los Angeles’s former city attorney have started and stopped repeatedly, with one trial continuance after another. The initial notice of charges was dated Feb. 9, 2017, and an amended notice was filed July 10, 2017.
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 current charges are that Trutanich:
8By 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”).
8Suppressed evidence “in willful violation of Rules of Professional Conduct, rule 5-220.”
8Committed “an act(s) of moral turpitude, dishonesty, or corruption in willful violation of Business and Professions Code, section 6106.” 8By “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 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.