Legal News

Jury Acquits One Fen-Phen Lawyer, Continues Deliberations on Others

By Ashby Jones

This just in: And on the sixth day of deliberations . . . the fen-phen jury exonerated one lawyer, then went back to deliberate on the fate of the other two.

A federal jury in Covington, Kentucky on Tuesday acquitted Melbourne Mills (pictured, center), one of the three lawyers accused of defrauding clients settlement involving the diet drug fen-phen. But after jurors sent a note to the judge saying that they could not reach a unanimous verdict on all the defendants, the judge urged the panel to keep considering the case against attorneys William Gallion (pictured, right) and Shirley Cunningham Jr. (pictured, left), who face the same charges. Here’s the story, from the AP.

Mills’ attorney, Jim Shuffett, said he was pleased, but said he couldn’t pinpoint what part of his defense had swayed the jury. “Whatever it was, it sure worked,” Shuffett said.

The six-week criminal trial had its fair share of odd twists and turns. There were tales of drunken lawyers, charitable funds created for the benefit of the Fen Phen attorneys, a judge admitting on the stand to being embarrassed by his handling of the case and allegations of juror stalking.

Mills still faces a civil lawsuit from 414 former clients in state court. Gallion and Cunningham are also defendants in that case. A state judge previously ordered the three men to pay $42 million to their former clients and said a trial will be held at a yet-to-be-set date to determine any punitive damages.

Prosecutors said in closing arguments that the lawyers were motivated by greed when they took a $127 million payment to settle a 2001 lawsuit in which they should have been paid $60 million. Defense attorneys said the lawyers didn’t commit any crimes and any mistakes in the settlement were unintentional.

Full post as published by Law Blog - WSJ.com on July 01, 2008 (boomark / email).