A Los Angeles County Superior Court judge has ordered celebrity attorney Mark Geragos to pay $218,000 in legal fees to the Los Angeles Times as a result of a failed libel lawsuit that accused three of the newspaper’s reporters of attempting to defame him.
Judge Wendy Chang issued the order Feb. 20, according to media reports. The Geragos & Geragos law firm filed the lawsuit last year in a case related to the newspaper’s investigation of a $37 million legal settlement for victims of the Armenian genocide in what is now Turkey. The Times reported that fewer than 8% of claims were approved in the settlement with the French insurance firm AXA.
“This is an action for damages based upon a malicious and defamatory course of conduct by the Los Angeles Times … and three of its reporters towards plaintiff Mark Geragos in reckless disregard of his rights or the truth, and with the singular goal of defaming him and painting him in a false light,” the defamation lawsuit filed in March of last year states.
In response to a query, a Times spokeswoman said, “We do not have a comment at this time.” The Geragos & Geragos law firm did not respond to a request for comment.
Geragos was one of three attorneys who filed class-action lawsuits against AXA Corp. and New York Life Insurance for policies issued during the genocide of an estimated 1.5 million Armenians by what was then the Ottoman Empire. That litigation resulted in a settlement of more than $37.5 million, according to a bio of Geragos on the law firm’s website.
Geragos, working with fellow attorneys Brian Kabateck and Vartkes Yeghiayan, secured the settlement, but Geragos and Kabateck later traded accusations of settlement fund misappropriations with Yeghiayan, who died in 2017 and was recommended for disbarment by the State Bar of California.
The bar launched an investigation of Geragos over the settlement disbursement in 2022. In response to a query, the bar said the details of the probe remain confidential.
“By law, disciplinary investigations are confidential, unless confidentiality is waived pursuant to the provisions of (the) Business and Professions Code …” the bar said in an email to the Southern California Record. “While the State Bar Board of Trustees chair waived the confidentiality requirements in 2022 related to the fact that an investigation of Mr. Geragos and Brian Kabateck in connection with Armenian Genocide insurance settlement funds was occurring pursuant to Business and Professions Code section 6086.1(b)(2) (as in effect at the time), details of the investigation must remain confidential to comply with statutory limitations on disclosure.”
The public announcement of the bar probe in September 2022 was intended to bolster confidence in the bar’s ability to police the actions of attorneys, according to the bar’s chairman, Ruben Duran.
Earlier that year, plaintiff’s attorney Tom Girardi was disbarred after being accused of stealing millions of dollars from his clients. Girardi is now facing a criminal fraud trial in Los Angeles.
“The State Bar is charged with protecting the public,” Duran said when he announced the investigation. “Confidence in our ability to do so has unfortunately been shaken in recent times by the Girardi matter and what it represents. Restoring and maintaining the public’s trust in the disciplinary apparatus of this agency is imperative.”
The bar has stressed that a bar investigation is not in itself an indication of misconduct.
Several California congressional representatives – Jackie Speier, Anna Eshoo and Adam Schiff – all called for a misconduct investigation after the Times reported on misallocations of the Armenian genocide settlement funds.