Civil Suits

The Securities and Exchange Commission filed a civil lawsuit Thursday against two operators of a Los Angeles hedge fund, accusing them of making false statements about the fund's performance and misappropriating more than $2 million of clients' funds. Alero Odell Mack and Steven Enrico Lopez, who operated Easy Equity Management Inc., allegedly obtained $4 million from 25 investors from 2007 until March of this year by overstating past returns and falsely claiming that Mack had unique access to the New York Stock Exchange trading floor.

Attorneys representing the family of the Guatemalan day laborer killed by police in September say they will file a civil rights lawsuit in federal court Monday arguing that the Los Angeles Police Department's official version of events is contradicted by several witnesses. "We wouldn't have taken this case unless we had a good-faith belief that there were deficient tactics on the part of the officers," said Luis Carrillo, a South Pasadena attorney representing the widow and three children of Manuel Jaminez Xum, an immigrant from a rural Maya community five hours west of Guatemala City.

The Roman Catholic Diocese of Orange, acting on behalf of Santa Ana Mater Dei High, has filed a civil suit in Santa Ana Superior Court alleging that the CIF Southern Section has "applied rules relating to the eligibility of student-athletes at Mater Dei unfairly and inconsistently," according to diocese spokesman Ryan Lilyengren. The suit, filed Sept. 29, states that the Southern Section "has consistently, intentionally and systematically engaged in arbitrary and discriminatory actions against Mater Dei by issuing and enforcing unsupported and erroneous findings and rulings relating to eligibility of student athletes at Mater Dei. " This school year, the Southern Section declared ineligible a top water polo player who transferred to Mater Dei from Newport Harbor, and also a linebacker who transferred from a school in Connecticut.

Forgive me for laughing, but that was my first reaction to seeing the allegations made by attorneys for Santa Ana Mater Dei and the Roman Catholic Diocese of Orange against the CIF Southern Section in a civil suit filed last Wednesday in Santa Ana Superior Court. If it ever goes to court, the plaintiffs had better make sure they reserve plenty of peremptory challenges for the parents of public school athletes in the jury pool, because they're going to be as skeptical as I am. Mater Dei is mad because Southern Section Commissioner Jim Staunton had the audacity to declare ineligible two top athletes who had transferred in -- a water polo player and a football player.

The weekend death of Beverly Hills money manager Stanley Chais, who steered hundreds of millions of dollars to the Ponzi scheme operated by Bernard L. Madoff, puts an end to a criminal investigation by the U.S. attorney's office in New York. But a spate of civil lawsuits will probably continue as the government and angry investors try to lay claim to any assets he left behind. Chais, 84, who died Sunday in New York, had been under criminal investigation since January 2009, suspected of operating a so-called feeder fund that channeled millions of dollars from clients to Madoff while telling investors he was making huge gains through equities and other financial instruments.

At the time of his death, former Beverly Hills money manager Stanley Chais was facing several civil lawsuits related to his financial investments with Bernard L. Madoff. He also was under criminal investigation by the U.S. attorney's office in New York. No criminal charges were filed. The civil lawsuits pending include: Picard lawsuit: Irving H. Picard, trustee overseeing the liquidation of Madoff's assets, sued Chais, his wife, Pamela, and several family members in Manhattan Bankruptcy Court in May 2009, seeking to recover hundreds of millions of dollars Picard said were ill-gotten profits from Madoff's Ponzi scheme.

The Los Angeles police officer who fatally shot a day laborer in Westlake was previously found by the department's watchdog arm to have used improper tactics in 2008 when he shot and wounded a man in the leg, authorities said Friday. Officer Frank Hernandez shot then 18-year-old Joseph Wolf on the morning of Dec. 12, 2008, according to an LAPD statement from the time and a civil rights lawsuit filed this March by Wolf's attorneys. The suit, pending in U.S. District Court in Los Angeles, accuses Hernandez of improperly using deadly force.

Technology giant Samsung Electronics has dropped its civil lawsuit against a freelance newspaper columnist here, saying both parties had reached a "common consensus" over a Christmas Day 2009 column that poked fun at the company and its top executives. The British-born columnist, Michael Breen, still faces criminal defamation charges for the satirical column he wrote for the Korea Times that included comments about Samsung and its chairman, Lee Kun-hee. The company had sued Breen, as well as the newspaper and its editor, for $1 million, citing the column's "mocking tone" and "baseless, malicious and offensive false information."

Goldman Sachs Group Inc. shares tumbled Friday on reports of a federal criminal probe into the company's conduct. Prosecutors in the U.S. attorney's office in Manhattan have been investigating Goldman since the Securities and Exchange Commission filed a civil fraud lawsuit against the firm two weeks ago, according to people familiar with the situation. Such a move is not unusual when the SEC brings a fraud suit, and former federal prosecutors said the firm was not in significantly more danger now than it was when the suit was announced.

Scheduled depositions in a civil lawsuit against Reggie Bush were canceled after the former USC running back reached an out-of-court settlement with the plaintiff. Bush settled with would-be sports marketer Lloyd Lake , who was suing Bush for nearly $300,000, a source with knowledge of the situation confirmed. The source requested anonymity because the individual was not authorized to speak publicly. Yahoo! Sports, citing a source, reported the settlement Tuesday night. Lake had claimed he provided Bush with cash and other benefits while the Heisman Trophy winner was playing for the Trojans in 2004 and 2005.