Posed as Attorneys? : Man Blames Brother for Legal Trouble

A man accused of pretending to be a lawyer blamed his codefendant brother for his legal problems Wednesday, contending that he thought the brother was really a law school graduate and attorney.

Frank Vescera, 34, of Mission Viejo, said in a written statement filed as part of a plea for a low bail that he acted mostly as an office manager for his 28-year-old brother, John, and appeared in court himself only rarely. When he did, “it was under the direction of a person I believed to be a member of the California State Bar,” Frank Vescera said.

But Deputy Dist. Atty. Jan Nolan disputed Frank Vescera’s claims, and Superior Court Judge Richard W. Luesebrink set bail at $150,000 for each brother. He told Frank Vescera’s lawyer, George Boisseau, he could return to court today to argue for lower bail.

John Vescera has been in jail since Feb. 6, when he was arrested, found in contempt of court and sentenced to 35 days behind bars for pretending to be a lawyer in the Santa Ana courtroom of Municipal Judge Jacquelyn D. Thomason.

Nolan charged each of the brothers Tuesday with conspiring to practice law without a license, conspiring to commit grand theft and 192 counts of theft--one for each defendant the brothers allegedly represented. The two conspiracy counts and 153 of the theft counts are felonies. The complaint charged the brothers took in more than $100,000 since beginning what Nolan called a “scam” last April.

John Vescera’s attorney, Michael T. Kenney, successfully argued to Municipal Judge B. Tam Nomoto that she and all the other judges in the Municipal Court, where arraignments are normally held, should disqualify themselves because his client had probably appeared before each of them at one time or another.

Not Guilty Pleas

Nomoto agreed, and Luesebrink accepted the pleas of not guilty from the brothers in Superior Court and set bail.

Both brothers let their attorneys do most of the talking for them during their court appearances, and only Frank filed a statement asking to be released on low bail or on his own recognizance.

In the request, he said he was a father of two who gave up a $30,000-a-year job as a salesman for a pharmaceutical company last November to help his brother by performing non-legal work in an increasingly busy office.

“I was not an equal partner with John nor did he equally share in the fees that came into the office,” Frank Vescera said. “I was in every sense of the word a salaried employee . . . . Everything I did was under John’s direction or at his request.”

His Brother’s Tale

Frank Vescera said that late in 1983 or early in 1984, John told him he had graduated from law school, was entitled to practice law and “even showed me his bar card.”

Investigators charged that John got the card by writing to the State Bar, saying he had changed his name from John Helmick and asking for a card in his new name. The State Bar, apparently unaware that the Helmick who held a bar card first issued in 1922 had died recently, issued the card in October of 1983 in the name of John Vescera.

Nolan charged that Frank Vescera tried a similar ploy several months later, telling the bar in March, 1984, that he had changed his name from Burton Cohn and requesting a card in his new name.

Bar officials said they turned him down, and investigators said suspicions were aroused because the supposed name change--from Burton Cohn to Frank Vescera--was so radical. In addition, Cohn’s former law partner, C. Peter Anderson of Claremont, said Cohn was very well known as an adjunct professor at Loyola Law School and an ex-president of an electronics firm.

Nolan said that after the rejection, Frank Vescera “called the bar on several occasions” to report that attorney Wesley Harrison had changed his address. Harrison’s renewed card was sent to the changed address in January, 1984, a month after he died, and was found in the Vescera brothers’ office near the court, Nolan said.

Nolan rejected as “incredible” Frank Vescera’s statement to the court, which she said “in effect lays the entire blame on John and maintains his (Frank’s) innocence completely.”

Earlier Troubles

She said both brothers had been in trouble with the law before, with John serving six months in jail and Frank 20 days in 1979 for defrauding J. C. Penney Co. of $15,000 in two months by forging a rubber stamp with the store’s seal and using it on sales receipts that they then presented to cashiers to get cash.

The prosecutor said the brothers had similar rubber stamps with the seals of the May Co., Broadway and Sears department stores. Investigators said John Vescera has been charged with other crimes in the past, though they declined to provide details, and Nolan said in court that three years ago Frank Vescera was involved in a lawsuit alleging fraud and deceit stemming from his purchase of a house.

“The entire history of these two people shows fraud,” she said in requesting $150,000 bail. “Since they started this scam, they got over $100,000 . . . . They pled everybody out guilty, never went to trial on a case,” and deprived their clients of their constitutional right to be represented by an attorney, she said.

Investigators said at least half the brothers’ clients were Latinos, and Armando Valenzuela, who works with the court on behalf of the National Traffic Safety Institute, said he believes many of them may have been illegal immigrants.

Valenzuela said that after the clients, most of whom were charged with drunk driving, pleaded guilty to one count and had the second dismissed--standard practice in such cases--they were sent to him for placement in programs to treat drug or alcohol abuse.

“Some of the clients thought very highly of Mr. (John) Vescera,” Valenzuela told reporters outside the court. “He was someone who was going to appear in court, and they wouldn’t have to appear in court; he was not going to charge them much.”

Investigators seized $25,900 in cash in a safe deposit box maintained by the brothers in a bank on the first-floor of the office building where they had an office and said they believed the money was payments from clients.