F. Lee Bailey told to pay $5-million

The famed lawyer wrongly took $2-million in fees, says a jury that also hit him with $3-million in damages.

©Associated Press
March 28, 2003

ORLANDO -- Disbarred attorney F. Lee Bailey took $2-million in fees that legally belonged to the U.S. government, a federal jury ruled Thursday. Jurors ordered him to return it and pay an additional $3-million in damages.

Federal prosecutors had sued Bailey for the $2-million he and other lawyers took for representing television infomercial salesman William McCorkle and his wife on fraud charges in 1998. Prosecutors had sought an additional $6-million in punitive damages.

Bailey, who was disbarred by Florida two years ago for inappropriately using millions of dollars worth of stock belonging to another client, closed his eyes and rubbed his chin when the eight jurors presented their verdict after 90 minutes of deliberation.

"I'm quite disappointed," said Bailey, who gained fame representing celebrity clients such as Patty Hearst and O.J. Simpson. "It looks to me like the jury had in mind the death sentence."

Bailey, who represented himself, said he would appeal. Assistant U.S. Attorney Ralph Lee declined to comment.

During closing arguments, Bailey told the jurors a verdict against him would send a message that defense lawyers should avoid risky criminal cases because if their client is convicted the government will take what they earned. Lee told jurors Bailey wrongly took the legal fees from a Cayman Island fund he set up with McCorkle in 1997 and that the federal government had a right to obtain the money by forfeiture.

A court should have decided who got the $2-million, but "Mr. Bailey was grabbing the money as quickly as possible," Lee said.

A federal judge in 2000 determined that the money belonged to the federal government.

Bailey, 69, was disbarred in 2001 in Florida and in 2002 in Massachusetts for the way he handled 600,000 shares of stock owned by convicted drug smuggler Claude Duboc in 1994. He spent about six weeks in federal prison in 1996 after refusing to turn over the stock, contending the government had agreed he could keep some of it.

The McCorkles were convicted in November 1998 on 151 counts of fraud, money laundering and false statement charges. Each was sentenced to 24 years in prison.

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