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Gibbons Accuser Called "Pathological Liar"
Remember Nevada Gov. Jim Gibbons (R)? Friend of defense contractors and foe to cocktail waitresses?
Prosecutors convened a grand jury this spring in Washington, DC to investigate whether Gibbons had accepted bribes from defense contractor Warren Trepp. Things have been pretty quiet since then, but last week, The Las Vegas Review-Journal reported that prosecutors had subpoenaed their first witness to testify to the grand jury.
The witness is Michael Flynn, the lawyer who used to represent Dennis Montgomery, Trepp's former business partner who has been the source of the accusations against Gibbons. In a lawsuit against Trepp and in an interview with NBC news, Montgomery laid it all out: he'd seen Trepp pass more than $100,000 in cash and poker chips to Gibbons. There was even an old fashioned briefcase full of cash in the mix. Trepp gave Gibbons the chips, Montgomery said, during a cruise (see picture below). He also produced an email from Trepp to his wife allegedly sent before the cruise, where he responded to his wife's request of "Please don't forget to bring the money you promised Jim and Dawn [Gibbons' wife]," with "Don't you ever send this kind of message to me! Erase this message from your computer right now!"
But it gets muckier. Flynn, who represented Montgomery on the copyright lawsuit against Trepp, says that Montgomery quit paying his bills this spring. So he withdrew from the case. And now he's suing Montgomery for the money -- and saying in a recent filing that his former client is a "pathological liar."
Or as he put it:
"Montgomery has told me so many different lies about so many things, it is virtually impossible to determine the 'true facts,' let alone what parts of his statements are outright false, partially false, misleading or have grains of truth...""He is a perfect example of the principle that if you tell a big enough lie, people will believe you."
That threatens to put somewhat of a damper on the government's case -- for their potential star witness to be called a "pathological liar." However, Flynn, walking the finest of lines, says that he doesn't doubt Montgomery's accusations of bribery, saying that Montgomery participated in the bribery himself. All this is likely to make Flynn's testimony before the grand jury rather interesting.
Trepp's attorney, somewhat optimistically, says he thinks the investigation is actually of Montgomery for being such a big fat liar, not Gibbons and Trepp. More likely, prosecutors are investigating whether Trepp's gifts led to the more than $100 million in defense contracts for software, which Flynn calls junk -- and whether their case can hold up.





Comments (10)
The republicans are a gift that keeps giving. Another WA GOP representative is in hot water. Good old Jim Dunn just can't keep his mouth shut.
November 7, 2007 12:35 PM | Reply | Permalink
Some of us have known all along that Montgomery IS a pathological liar. The logical assumption is that if he is lying about everything else he must be lying about the bribery too. It is also known that he falsified one of the suspicious emails, why not the other one too? The bribery just didn't happen but he knew it would make the press and meet his personal agenda of hurting Gibbons and Trepp. Montgomery's cheap suit of outrageous claims is finally starting to unravel in the inevitable rain of truth.
November 7, 2007 12:52 PM | Reply | Permalink
Client stops paying bills. Lawyer starts calling him a liar. Couldn't possibly be a causal link there.
I haven't followed the case that closely but it seems that Flynn may be in the position of the disgruntled ex-mistress. Apparently those lies didn't sting so much when the bills were getting paid.
November 7, 2007 1:02 PM | Reply | Permalink
I never knew that a client had to keep paying his bills for an attorney to be bound by the attorney-client privilege against disclosure of confidential communications! Looks to me that Flynn is sailing in dangerous waters to say that confidential communications have been false. But it may be OK to comment on the attorney's view of the truth of a client's statement to the attorney, as long as the attorney does not reveal the substance or topic of the communication that the attorney deemed false.
Different case entirely if Montgomery had sued Flynn, his attorney. Bringing a suit against the attorney on the matter of the attorney's representation would generally act as a waiver of the attorney-client privilege.
November 7, 2007 1:52 PM | Reply | Permalink
Why is a lawyer testifying about the honesty and character of his client (even if it is a former client). It is one thing to do so in their own CIVIL suit, where this is actually relevant to the issue at hand. But would this not be privileged under any other circumstances? Any information disclosed by a client to a lawyer should be privileged, no? Even if it's a big fat lie.
This is not the last of Flynn's brushes with THE LAW. He may win his suit against Montgomery and be disbarred for it.
PS: Looks like I'm with A Hardened Liberal
November 7, 2007 2:30 PM | Reply | Permalink
If people only read the highlighted boxes they would miss the more significant backbeat of the story "he doesn't doubt Montgomery's accusations of bribery, saying that Montgomery participated in the bribery himself." Doesn't doubt that bribery occured!
November 7, 2007 2:41 PM | Reply | Permalink
Slightly off-subject, but obviously connected tangentially: Whatever happened to the case involving then-Congressman Gibbon's alleged assault upon that Las Vegas cocktail waitress?
The one where the Clark County Sheriff's Office appeared to carry Gibbons' water for him, and key evidence in form of a parking garage surveillance video got conveniently "lost," only to reappear as if by magic a few weeks later, and -- lo and behold and voila! -- the sheriff said the tape "exonerated" Gibbons?
It just fell off the radar screen. Even the Vegas papers let it go. I'm sorry, but that case was like a cliche-riddled "Matlock" episode, only without Andy Griffith's title character around to see that justice was done. It just reeked of collusion and cover-up -- and a very thinly-veiled one, at that.
Anyone know whatever happened to that poor woman?
November 7, 2007 3:18 PM | Reply | Permalink
Hardheaded liberal and buck: Yeah, you'd be right in almost any state in the Union--but not Nevada. In a state in which cab drivers have to "tip" their dispatchers to get good fares and judges tip cases to former partners, ethical standards are a little more flexible there than elsewhere.
Texas is another example, but let's limit ourselves to one moral sinkhole at a time.
November 7, 2007 9:32 PM | Reply | Permalink
I'm with Donald in Hawaii. I haven't forgotten the waitress either, and would love to get to the bottom of that story.
November 7, 2007 11:54 PM | Reply | Permalink
In Nevada, a lot of high ranking elected officials are controlled by GOP casino related moguls. In Gibbons case, his best pal is Sheldon Adelsohn, close friend of Dick Cheney and the neocons. Go figure. It wasn't hard to get those tapes in the garage to yield nothing related to waitress groping.
Gawd help us in Nevada!
November 8, 2007 1:07 AM | Reply | Permalink