The chief prosecutor for the State Bar of California said Tuesday that the agency was taking a fresh look at attorney conduct in landmark Armenian genocide reparations cases following a Times investigation that detailed corruption and misdirection of funds in one of the settlements.
“The State Bar is reviewing these cases to determine whether there is any new information that would warrant further action,” said the bar’s Chief Trial Counsel George Cardona, a former federal prosecutor appointed last year to lead investigations and prosecutions at the agency that regulates the legal profession in California.
The bar previously disciplined one attorney and attempted to discipline two others in connection with the genocide litigation.
“There was a terrible injustice done when descendants of those murdered in the Armenian Genocide were denied their rightful settlements,” Cardona said in his statement. He described those already prosecuted as “most directly responsible for these misappropriations” but added, “the State Bar has the responsibility to take action when it becomes aware of new evidence.”
Cardona’s announcement in a statement to The Times comes after four California lawmakers, including U.S. Rep. Adam B. Schiff (D-Burbank), called for a probe into the misconduct the newspaper outlined.
The report last month drew on newly unsealed court records to explain how a $17.5-million settlement in 2005 for heirs of genocide victims was marred in subsequent years by a claims process that rejected 92% of applicants and sent money to sham claimants, relatives of a settlement administrator and a lawyer with no official role in the case. It also revealed irregularities in the distribution of charity funds, including more than $750,000 that Armenian church groups say they never received.
Three Armenian American attorneys — prominent Los Angeles lawyers Mark Geragos and Brian Kabateck and Glendale attorney Vartkes Yeghiayan — were lead counsel in the case. The bar received complaints about the three lawyers and others over the last decade from claimants and members of a court-appointed settlement board, according to court records and complaints submitted to authorities.
The bar took no action against Geragos or Kabateck but filed disciplinary cases against Yeghiayan and his wife, for allegedly funneling settlement money to family members, their law firm and nonprofits they controlled.
Yeghiayan died before trial. His wife was cleared by a bar review panel.
An attorney from Beverly Hills who had endorsed and deposited settlement checks made out to heirs of genocide victims, Berj Boyajian, was suspended from the practice of law and later resigned. He was convicted in criminal court of two counts in connection with making false statements to the bar.
Representatives for Geragos and Kabateck have told The Times they did nothing wrong, that they were not responsible for approving or denying claims and that others, including those prosecuted by the bar, bore the blame for the fraud in the case.
Kabateck said Tuesday that he had cooperated with the past bar probes and would continue to do so “because we have nothing to hide.”
“The true demonstrable facts are that our firm engaged in no wrongdoing of any kind,” he said in a statement.
Harriet Ryan
Harriet Ryan is an investigative reporter for the Los Angeles Times. Since joining the paper in 2008, she has written about high-profile people, including Phil Spector, Michael Jackson and Britney Spears, and institutions, including USC, the Catholic Church, the Kabbalah Centre and Purdue Pharma, the manufacturer of OxyContin. Ryan won the Pulitzer Prize for investigative reporting with colleagues Matt Hamilton and Paul Pringle in 2019. She previously worked at Court TV and the Asbury Park Press. She is a graduate of Columbia University.
Matt Hamilton
Matt Hamilton is a reporter for the Los Angeles Times. He won the 2019 Pulitzer Prize for investigative reporting with colleagues Harriet Ryan and Paul Pringle and was part of the team of reporters that won a Pulitzer Prize for its coverage of the San Bernardino terrorist attack. A graduate of Boston College and the University of Southern California, he joined The Times in 2013.