Unless rescued by the California Supreme Court, which has the final say in judicial disciplinary matters, Court of Appeal Justice Jeffrey W. Johnson of this district’s Div. One will be booted from his post, on orders of the Commission on Judicial Performance on June 2.
But review is discretionary and legal issues are not plentiful. The major issue advanced by the beleaguered jurist’s lawyers is that the conduct which was found by the three masters reporting to the commission—and deemed by the CJP to be supported by the evidence—relate to out-of-court sexual harassment, as well as drunkenness in public, which were private matters and do not meet the standard for removal.
Attorney Paul S. Meyer of Costa Mesa, representing Johnson, reacted to the CJP’s action by remarking that all of the allegations relate to “non-judicial social conversations” and observing that no witness contended that Johnson had been “unfair in any case” or was “anything less than brilliant.”
However, the commission, in its 111-page decision and order, not only found repeated victimizing of women—including Justice Victoria Chaney, a member of the same division as Johnson—in the form of inappropriate advances, comments, and touchings, but also dishonesty on his part in lying during the course of the CJP proceedings.
“Rather than take responsibility for his offensive behavior, he maligned the victims, including his colleague Justice Chaney, and accused them of testifying falsely,” the CJP declared. “But it is Justice Johnson whom the masters found, and we find, testified untruthfully in many instances.”
In summing up, it said:
“Judges are expected to be honest, have integrity, uphold high personal standards, and treat everyone with dignity and respect, on or off the bench. Justice Johnson’s conduct before, and during, this proceeding demonstrates that he does not meet these fundamental expectations. He committed 18 acts of prejudicial misconduct and was found to have engaged in the unwanted touching of four women, to have engaged in conduct that would reasonably be perceived as sexual harassment of seven women at his court, to have misused the prestige of his position and demeaned his judicial office by attempting to develop personal relationships with three other young women, and to have further demeaned his office by his offensive conduct toward a fourth woman, as well as by multiple incidents of undignified conduct while intoxicated.
“Justice Johnson’s refusal to admit to serious misconduct, and his intoxication, coupled with his failure to be truthful during the proceedings, compels us to conclude that he cannot meet the fundamental expectations of his position as a judge. Fulfilling the commission’s mandate—particularly with respect to maintaining public confidence in the integrity of the judiciary—can only be achieved by removing him from the bench.”
The commission has 11 members—six public members, three judges, and two lawyers. Two members—Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Lisa B. Lench and one public member—recused themselves.
Their decision was unanimous.
Johnson was appointed to his post in 2009 by then-Gov. Arnold Swarzenegger, on the recommendation of Div. One’s outgoing presiding justice, Vaino Spencer (since deceased). At the time, Johnson was a U.S. magistrate judge for the Central District of California, a position for which he was hired in 1999.
He received his law degree from Yale in 1985, was private practice 1985-89, and was an assistant United States attorney for the Central District of California from 1989-99.
Since the commission came into existence in 1961, only once did it call for the removal of a justice of an appellate court. On May 2, 1977, it ordered the involuntary retirement of California Supreme Court Justice Marshall F. McComb, after a 50-year judicial career—not based on misconduct, but due to the 82-year-old jurist having become senile.
Michael J. Avenatti
Attorney
Michael J. Avenatti, a one-time prominent Los Angeles attorney and prospective presidential candidate, is awaiting sentencing in New York. He was convicted Feb. 14 in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York on attempted extortion and wire fraud counts.
In light of the coronavirus pandemic, Avenatti was released from a federal correctional facility in New York in April, where he was being held following felony convictions. He is on home confinement at a friend’s house in Los Angeles. His continued release is in doubt; prosecutors this month alleged he has accessed the Internet in violation of a condition of being freed.
The State Bar’s Office of Chief Trial Counsel on March 13 forwarded to the State Bar Court records of Avenatti’s conviction. Since May 4, he has been on an interim suspension based on that conviction.
In light of the adjudication in federal court that Avenatti did attempt to pry nearly $25 million from Nike by threatening to expose misconduct by the sportswear giant in the recruitment of college basketball players if it did not pay—and the prospect of a sentence of 40 years or more in prison—State Bar proceedings are relegated to little significance. It now looms as a virtual certainty that he will ultimately be disbarred in California.
State Bar disciplinary charges were filed July 29, 2019, but proceedings were abated on Sept. 17 of last year in light of pending criminal charges in the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California.
He is additionally being prosecuted in New York—apart from the now-completed attempted extortion case—for allegedly cheating clients, including pocketing $300,000 in an advance to porn star Stormy Daniels in connection with her book, “Full Disclosure.” Avenatti, who has handled a number of high-profile cases, represented Daniels—whose actual name is Stephanie Clifford—in her actions against President Donald Trump to skirt a 2016 nondisclosure agreement she signed in connection with a $130,000 pay-off for agreeing not to talk publicly of their affair in 2006. He also handled her action against the president for defamation.
There has been one trial continuance after another in the federal prosecution of the disbarred Philip James Layfield, a former practitioner in Los Angeles, who has been released on a $100,000 bond and is presently residing in Delaware. He had been facing a June 16 trial in the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California on charges of mail fraud and money laundering, but on April 16, District Court Judge Michael W. Fitzgerald, acting pursuant to a stipulation of the parties, put off that trial to Dec. 1.
As federal investigators closed in on him, Layfield fled to Costa Rica in June 2017, was in the United States for two days in October 2017, returned to Costa Rica, and came back to the U.S. on Feb. 19, 2018. He was arrested in New Jersey on Feb. 26 and was indicted here on March 9, 2018.
The prosecution began in connection with Layfield 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 $2.3 million.
A superseding indictment expanded the scope of the prosecution to include tax evasion and fraud for 2016 and 2017.
Attorney Anthony M. Solis, on Aug. 17, 2018, filed an emergency motion for an order modifying the terms of Layfield’s release to permit him to leave his residence to attend classes, paving the way for him to obtain a commercial driver’s license so he could seek employment as a truck driver. The motion was granted and he completed a seven-week course. On Oct. 16, 2018, Fitzgerald granted a motion permitting him to accept employment with a trucking company, and last month authorized him to become an independent trucker.
Layfield was suspended from law practice by the State Bar of California after he failed to show up for his Jan. 24, 2018 disciplinary hearing. The State Bar Office of Chief Trial Counsel filed disciplinary charges against him on Sept. 20, 2017, alleging that the attorney misappropriated more than $3.4 million from his clients. He was disbarred Oct. 27, 2018.
Layfield acknowledges moving funds from the attorney-client trust account to his erstwhile firm’s general fund, but insists that 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.
A trustee in bankruptcy for Layfield & Barrett, APC, is seeking to recover more than $10 million from Layfield. Pending before the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California is an appeal from the Bankruptcy Court’s denial of Layfield’s motion for judgment on the pleadings. That matter is before Judge Stephen V. Wilson.
