Weather | Sports | Forums | Comics | Classifieds | Calendar | Movies
By Associated PressA judge vacates her earlier finding that F. Lee Bailey illegally tapped a client's tainted trust fund.
ORLANDO - A federal judge has thrown out $5-million in penalties against disbarred attorney F. Lee Bailey, ruling that he did nothing wrong when he used a client's money to mount a defense.
Judge Anne C. Conway's order, issued Wednesday, vacated her own previous summary finding that Bailey illegally collected more than $777,000 from a $2-million trust fund used to defend a television infomercial salesman charged with swindling customers.
Conway also set aside a jury's punitive damages award to the government of $3-million and ruled that Bailey can have his court costs paid by the prosecutors.
"It's good to have this off my back," said Bailey, once one of the nation's best-known defense attorneys for representing clients such as Patty Hearst and O.J. Simpson.
Bailey was sued by federal prosecutors in civil court for the $2-million he and other lawyers took for representing William McCorkle and his wife on fraud charges in 1998.
Prosecutors claimed the government deserved the money by forfeiture since the funds came from a fraudulent business.
Conway ruled in January that the money was tainted and, therefore, belonged to the government. The jury levied punitive damages in March.
In April, Bailey filed a motion asking Conway to reconsider her judgment. Acting as his own attorney, Bailey argued that the trust was legal and the property of the McCorkles.
Conway agreed.
The U.S. Attorney's Office has not decided on its next move, spokesman Steve Cole said. It could ask the judge to reconsider her order or appeal the order.
Bailey, 70, was disbarred in 2001 in Florida and in 2002 in Massachusetts for the way he handled 600,000 shares of stock owned by a convicted drug smuggler in 1994. Bailey spent about six weeks in federal prison in 1996 after refusing to turn over the stock, contending the government agreed he could keep some of it.
The McCorkles, convicted in November 1998 on 151 counts of fraud, money laundering and false statement charges, are serving 24-year sentences.