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Thursday, March 28, 2024
HomeNewsArchivesBrief: Judge Questions Prosser Lawyer’s Statement on Fees

Brief: Judge Questions Prosser Lawyer’s Statement on Fees

U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Judith Fitzgerald has openly questioned the fee disclosure statement filed by one of the lawyers of Jeffrey Prosser, the now-bankrupt former CEO and owner of Innovative Telephone.
The judge had earlier ordered all of Prosser’s lawyers to describe in detail the fee arrangements they had with Prosser. All said that they had not received fees for several years. How Prosser had been able to keep these lawyers filing documents on his behalf when he apparently had no funds for this purpose had puzzled court observers for a long time.
On June 15 the judge filed an order for Norman Abood, Prosser’s Toledo-based lawyer, to file a “supplement to his attorney’s affirmation and second supplemental disclosure statement” on the fees.
She gave him eight different tasks to complete, in this connection, by a deadline of June 30. Perhaps the most interesting was: “6. By stating whether he has, in fact, received the monthly retainer of $8,000 since December 2008, or any part thereof, and if so, when, from what source, and in what form.”
She also ordered him to provide additional information to supplement what he had reported to her earlier, including “identifying the source of the four expense reimbursements received in 2009.” While the lawyers said that they had not been paid fees for a long time, several reported that they had received expense reimbursements. (Since none of the lawyers practice in Pittsburgh, where most of the hearings have been held, all need to travel to that place.)
The next hearing in the case will take place on July 7 in St. Croix.

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