Ruling on motion to dismiss coming

• By ALLEN JOHNSON JR.
• Advocate New Orleans bureau
• Published: Jul 3, 2008 - Page: 10A - UPDATED: 12:05 a.m.

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NEW ORLEANS — U.S. District Judge Eldon Fallon can begin deciding whether to dismiss an indicted attorney’s sensational lawsuit against Adams & Reese, LLP, a major law firm.

Attorneys for Adams & Reese and estranged former law partner James “Jamie” G. Perdigao, 46, of New Orleans, who also faces criminal charges, have filed written briefs on a motion to dismiss Perdigao’s federal civil racketeering suit against the firm.

A procedural deadline passed Wednesday without the judge requesting oral arguments in the case.

“The judge will rule, and he will rule sometime in the future — I don’t know when,” Perdigao’s civil attorney, Robert H. Matthews, said.

Perdigao alleges that the firm, and eight top lawyers named as defendants in the suit, engaged in years of corrupt or unethical practices in connection with 27 clients, who he also identifies in  records.

 Stephen Kupperman, a New Orleans-based lawyer for Adams & Reese, calls Perdigao’s allegations “false,” his lawsuit “fantasy” and seeks sanctions against the suspended attorney for discussing the affairs of the firm and its clients in court filings.

“If Perdigao’s case is not dismissed with appropriate sanctions, lawyer-client confidentiality evaporates in Louisiana,” Kupperman wrote, in a petition seeking dismissal of Perdigao’s suit. 

While at Adams & Reese, Perdigao worked on non-criminal matters related to the gaming interests of former Treasure Chest Casino owner Robert J. Guidry, who became a key prosecution witness in the riverboat casino corruption trial of former Gov. Edwin Edwards. Perdigao was called by the government to testify about Guidry’s gaming interests. Now, the lawyer could face federal prison himself for allegedly swindling the law firm and its casino-clients out of $30 million.

Perdigao is set for trial Dec. 1 on 59 counts of alleged financial crimes. Judge Fallon presides over that case as well. 

U.S. Attorney Jim Letten, the lead federal prosecutor against the former governor, last month found himself hotly denying the criminal defendant-Perdigao’s allegations that the government fell short in the Edwards case as well as more contemporary corruption probes. Letten is on record as characterizing Perdigao’s complaints against his office as “unsupported vitriol,” notwithstanding the two years the FBI and his office spent debriefing Perdigao.

In the civil suit before Fallon, Perdigao offers an insider’s account of alleged corruption and avarice in Louisiana.

The allegations
A former ethics adviser to Adams & Reese and a law partner at the firm for 13 years, Perdigao places himself, former clients and individual lawyers at the law firm at the center of several allegedly corrupt or unethical schemes, including:

• Obstruction of federal grand jury investigations into the administration of ex-New Orleans Mayor Marc Morial.
• The misuse of Louisiana film tax credits.
• An alleged 1997 plot to bribe then-U.S. Attorney Eddie Jordan through U.S. Rep. William Jefferson.
• The improper shielding of insurance companies from hurricane claims.
• The WorldCom bank fraud scandal.
• Ticket-fixing at New Orleans Traffic Court.

Perdigao further alleges that “numerous partners” at Adams & Reese violated standards of lawyerly conduct by failing to disclose potential conflicts between firm business and their own “entrepreneurial activities,” including interests in gambling, consulting firms, oil and gas, professional sports teams, film tax credit brokerages, and even “waste disposal facilities in the country of Angola (Africa).”

Adams & Reese has fired back in recent court filings, repeatedly calling for the court to take disciplinary action against Perdigao in connection with his public court filings.