Posted on 10/29/2009 10:20:10 AM PDT by a fool in paradise
Edited on 10/29/2009 10:24:04 AM PDT by Admin Moderator. [history]
Prominent Houston attorney John O'Quinn was one of two men who died this morning when their SUV slammed into a large tree on Allen Parkway after the driver apparently lost control, police said.
"I'm stunned. The community lost one of its biggest assets," said Rick Laminack, who worked with O'Quinn from 1987 until 2006. "He was a great lawyer who shared a lot of his wealth with people who needed help."
(Excerpt) Read more at chron.com ...
I hate to speak ill of the dead but I find it funny that he (an attorney) befriended an ex-con and placed him in charge of the car collection. Then he noticed a Ferrari 575 and a ‘65 GT350 missing.
http://www.triallawyersinc.com/html/print03.html
THE NEW BILLIONAIRES
Top officers of Trial Lawyers, Inc. haul in sky-high fees for little work.
From tobacco settlements to asbes-to class action suits, the industry now boasts fees that can range as high as an astounding $30,000 an hour, turning some members of Trial Lawyers, Inc. into overnight billionaires and providing the capital to bankroll new lawsuit ventures in new markets...
Regardless of one’s view about the merits of the suits, the mega-fees from the 1998 tobacco settlement were nothing but egregious. Some 300 lawyers from 86 firms will pocket as much as $30 billion over the next 25 years even though, for many of them, the suits posed minimal risk and demanded little effort.[26] That staggering sum comes right out of taxpayers’ pockets—enough money to hire 750,000 teachers. When it comes to big corporations ripping off the public, no one holds a candle to Trial Lawyers, Inc.
More than $8 billion will go to a handful of firms that pioneered the first tobacco lawsuits in Mississippi, Florida, and Texas.27 The Florida teams will take home $3.4 billion, or $233 million per lawyer.[28] That’s $7,716 an hour—assuming they each worked 24 hours a day, seven days a week for three and a half years.[29]
The branch of Trial Lawyers, Inc. hired by the state of Illinois to handle the tobacco settlement took no depositions and never submitted a reckoning of their hours, but pocketed $121 million—and complained it should have gotten $400 million.[30] Ohio and Michigan also signed on late in the game—af-ter the heavy lifting had already been done—but their lawsuit industry sections still got $265 million and $450 million, respectively.[31]
—
A TEXAS-SIZE FRAUD
In July, former Texas attorney general Dan Morales pled guilty to two of 12 counts for which he had been indicted in connection with the Texas suits he filed against the tobacco industry.[42] Morales was ac-cused of trying to funnel hundreds of millions of dollars from the Texas tobacco settlement to a friend and converting campaign contribu-tions to personal use.[43] Morales’s case demonstrates the grave danger when government officials sub-contract out the state’s judicial authority to private litigators in Trial Lawyers, Inc.[44]
If memory serves was Morales sentenced to some jail time for this stunt.
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1282/is_16_53/ai_76915714/
Cash Bar - How trial lawyers bankroll the Democratic party
National Review, August 20, 2001 by Kate O’Beirne
In 1998, five Texas lawyers were awarded $3.3 billion for negotiating the state’s $17.3 billion tobacco settlement; every three months, each of the five receives a check for $25 million. In 1998, the “Tobacco Five” accounted for the lion’s share of the plaintiffs’ lawyers’ contributions that, in turn, made up 78 percent of all donations to the Texas Democratic party. In the 2000 cycle, money from the Tobacco Five represented 40 percent of the $4.8 million raised by the state’s Democrats. (By way of comparison, the Texas GOP raised only $2.7 million in the same cycle.) The Tobacco Five also donated $2.5 million in soft money to national Democrats.
O’Quinn may have been the driver and at fault. His estate could be in jeopardy.
I wonder if the driver’s family has deep pockets?
What was his carbon footprint?
Last October my son fell asleep while doing 45 on a local street. He flipped five times and the vehicle landed on its roof. Miraculously, he hit no other cars, pedestrians, or animals. He walked out without breaking any bones, his teeth, or cutting his face although the windshield and windows were destroyed.
We give glory to God, but credit his seatbelt and the fact that he was in an SUV.
Here it is,
by Walter Olson on June 26, 2003
“Former Texas Attorney General Dan Morales was ordered to remain in jail while awaiting trial on federal fraud charges after a judge determined today that he may have lied on two recent car loan applications and was a risk to commit financial crimes.” Morales, a key figure in the multistate tobacco litigation and long a familiar figure to readers of this site (see Jul. 15, 2002 and links from there; Jan. 10-12, 2003), was indicted in March (see Mar. 8-9) along with his friend Marc Murr and pleaded innocent to charges of having made improper efforts to gain hundreds of millions of dollars in fees for Murr from the state’s tobacco settlement. In the new development, Assistant U.S. Attorney Jim Blankinship presented U.S. District Judge Sam Sparks “with documents that he said showed Morales had purchased two used cars — a Mercedes and a Lexus — within days of filing a sworn affidavit with the court indicating that he had no income,” entitling him to representation by an appointed public defender. “According to Blankinship, Morales paid about $70,000 for the Mercedes and Lexus, both 2000 models. On loan applications to buy the cars, Morales listed his income as either $20,000 a month or $20,800 a month.” Judge Sparks remanded Morales into custody. (”Judge orders former attorney general to remain in jail”, AP/Houston Chronicle, Jun. 26; “Judge orders ex-AG Morales to remain jailed until October”, AP/Dallas Morning News, Jun. 26; David
Wouldn’t have flipped as many times if it weren’t an SUV. SUVs are the worst type of vehicle to have for single vehicle accidents.
Glad he came out of it OK. I was in a roll over in an Escort going down the highway at 70mph 10 years ago and walked away with only a couple bruises.
http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2005/11/08/17821141.php
These corrupt Texas liars who call themselves lawyers know this.Endovasc of Montgomery, Texas is a perfect example of this fraud that Houston attorneys O’Quinn and Christian aid and abet.After a phoney 40 for 1 ‘reverse split’ in 2002 that should have left under 3 million shares existing they concealed shares they were dumping from a Charles Schwab account that O’Quinn, in a 2002 BusinessWire pr fraudulently or stupidly attributed to ‘naked shorting’ and also many more offshore.
http://houstonist.com/2005/12/03/post_10.php
Blog post: Another crash on Allen Parkway (2005)
A friend of Houstonist’s told us about a four-car spinout on Allen Parkway just east of Shepherd this morning, which brings to mind a question we’ve been wondering for a long time: Why do so many people crash on Allen Parkway?
Some people say the increased accident rate is the result of the Spur 527 reconstruction, which has forced people to find alternate routes to downtown. Others blame the road itself, as the Chronicle noted last fall:
After Monday’s fatal crash, motorists contacted the Houston Chronicle to offer theories on why Allen Parkway is risky, pointing to increased traffic from the housing boom, the road’s drainage culverts, trees in the median, water on the street and even occasional glare from the sun.
Houstonist suspects it’s little more than people disregarding the speed limit, which is a reasonable 40 along Allen Parkway — but try going 40 during the evening rush hour and see where it gets you. The odd thing is, according to the Chronicle, there were no severe accidents for two years after the speed limit was increased to 40 from 35, and then there were a spate of fatal crashes in mid-2004. Go figure...
(excerpt)
A friend of mine just called and a former judge saw him this AM at Bush.
Just goes to show you never know when your # is going to be called.
It’s been 10 years but if I recall, there were some other Democrat lawyers who also tried for a slice of the pie and litigated for “their fair share”.
Yeah Bush stopped all that BS. By claiming the Fees were out of line.
Meanwhile this is treated as just another chat topic. One of the men who funded the Texas DNC. One of the men who raised healthcare costs in this country.
I wonder, will George Soros death also be called a “local news” item?
Need photo of widow O’Quinn.
I may want to send flowers.
Frankly I expect the Dums to hold a candlelight vigil tonight /s
When Soros kicks the Bucket the Dums will go into mourning for a month.
And msm will have endless eulogies.
BTW is SOROS still refused entry into the US.
The tobacco scam by lawyers makes them a quick billion.
As a plastic surgeon for over 30 yrs., the silicone inplant
scam was totally driven by greedy trail lawyers, spouting faulty science as gosple for their own profit to an unsuspecting public. After 20 yrs. of intensive research all the old alligations have been disproved and silicone
implants are back on the market. Winners by billions are the lawyers. Losers are women subjected to inferior saline implants (both cosmetic and reconstructive), manufacturers with loss of business and trail defense costs and doctors sued for ??damages??.
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