New suit seeks pay from attorneys in old divorce case

• By JOE GYAN JR.
• Advocate staff writer
• Published: May 9, 2009 - Page: 1B

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The latest chapter in a Baton Rouge businessman’s decade-long divorce case has his ex-wife laying claim to hundreds of thousands of dollars in legal fees he has paid his attorneys.

Brenda Keith also claims she is entitled to some of the more than $3 million that USAgencies Inc. founder Gregory Tramontin paid another former wife as part of a community property settlement.

Keith is suing Tramontin’s attorneys, including former Parish Attorney Wade Shows, claiming they profited by making false representations in her divorce case and should be required to “disgorge these ill-gotten profits.’’

“No client should have to pay his lawyers hundreds of thousands of dollars to make false representations to the court that can serve no purpose except to deceive the court and ultimately discredit the client,’’ Keith’s attorney, Neil Sweeney, alleges in the suit.

Shows sued Sweeney for alleged defamation in 2007 in connection with the long-running divorce case. The defamation suit has not been resolved.

Keith’s suit names Shows, his law partner Amy McInnis, and the law firm of Shows, Cali, Berthelot & Walsh LLP as defendants.

“We don’t have any comment, other than to say this is just another suit that Mr. Sweeney has filed over the past three years,’’ Shows said Thursday.

Keith’s suit, filed May 1, has been assigned to state District Judge Todd Hernandez.

Tramontin and Keith were married in December 1994 and divorced in December 1998. Keith claims Tramontin owes her more than $17 million from stock options and legal interest.

Family Court Judge Luke LaVergne ruled last year that Tramontin lied in court to defraud Keith of millions of dollars in stock and stock options that would have been split evenly as part of a divorce property settlement.

LaVergne’s ruling, which is being appealed, came in response to Keith’s 2003 request to have the couple’s 1999 property settlement thrown out.

The stock and stock options in question — ruled community property by the judge — were sold for approximately $20 million in cash in early 2007 when Texas-based Affirmative Insurance Holdings Inc. purchased USAgencies of Baton Rouge, Sweeney has said.

The suit, which claims Tramontin acquired the stock and options while he was married to Keith, alleges that Shows and McInnis helped Tramontin lie to the court about both to avoid paying her.