SOUTHFIELD, Mich. -- Geoffrey Fieger owns homes in Bloomfield Hills and the Caribbean, is a frequent commentator on national cable shows and makes a lucrative living using his theatrical style to win big verdicts in high-profile cases.
But in the past three months, Fieger has run into legal troubles of his own that cloud the future of the state's most famous lawyer.
The current problem is a federal investigation looking into whether he illegally reimbursed members of his law practice who contributed to 2004 Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards.
"I fully expect to be indicted by a grand jury, who will indict a bottle of beer if the Republican U.S. attorney told them to do it," Fieger said at a news conference Monday. "It has never been illegal in this country to give bonuses to civic-minded employees."
Fieger heads into that legal battle having recently escaped criminal charges in a probe originally overseen by Republican Attorney General Mike Cox into Fieger's financing of 2004 campaign ads against Supreme Court Justice Stephen Markman.
Special prosecutor Patrick Shannon, a Democrat, said Jan. 14 that Secretary of State Terri Lynn Land should consider civil penalties against Fieger but determined the $457,000 ad campaign and Fieger's attempts to hide that he was behind the ads didn't merit criminal prosecution.
The state investigation took a bizarre twist when Cox said Fieger, through an associate, threatened to divulge an affair Cox had unless he stopped looking into the anti-Markman ads. Cox held a news conference to admit the affair. The Oakland County prosecutor reviewed whether blackmail occurred but ended up not bringing any charges.
Fieger also filed federal and state lawsuits against Cox, Markman and Land, among others, charging they conspired to retaliate against him and deprive him of his free speech rights.
The 55-year-old acknowledges the recent allegations and investigations have been hard on him. But he also looks forward to exposing what he says is a McCarthy-esque political witch hunt consisting of lies orchestrated by the GOP and its leaders who are kowtowing to corporations and insurers he sues.
"They'd like to kill me. I'm not kidding," he told The Associated Press in a recent interview. "They would like to see me squashed. They would like to see me exterminated."
Controversy is nothing new for the outspoken Fieger, who nabbed the national limelight a decade ago while defending assisted-suicide advocate Jack Kevorkian.
He was accused of using an obscenity during a 1999 radio show to refer to three Court of Appeals judges and likened them to Nazi leaders. Fieger -- who still wears his hair slightly past his shirt collar and has a boyish, sometimes mischievous smile -- said he was just exercising his First Amendment rights.
During his 1998 run against Republican Gov. John Engler, he labeled Engler fat and moronic and pledged to kick his "gluteus maximus across the state." In 2001, he complained that then-Democratic gubernatorial candidate Jennifer Granholm "is as loyal as an alley cat."
During the 2000 presidential campaign, he ran "dumb" and "dumber" ads against then-Texas Gov. George W. Bush that helped U.S. Sen. John McCain win Michigan's GOP primary.
Sitting in his Southfield office -- which has pictures of him with famous clients such as Kevorkian and books about Scopes Monkey Trial lawyer Clarence Darrow -- Fieger reaches for photos of his adopted sons, 4-year-old Julian and 2-year-old Aidan.
"They're my love of my life," he says. "They're trying to take me away from my children. For what? For stealing money? For enriching myself at the hands of ... the tribes? For bribing somebody? No."
Fieger's voice crescendos.
"For using my own money to pay for ads."
He appears dumbfounded, then laughs.
"Can you imagine? Can you imagine, in America, what's going on?"
High-profile cases
Fieger burst onto the public scene in the 1990s by representing Kevorkian, who says he helped more than 130 people with terminal or debilitating illnesses kill themselves. With Fieger's help, Kevorkian won acquittals at three murder trials and a mistrial.
Kevorkian defended himself in a fifth trial and was sent to prison.
Ever since, Fieger has been involved in high-profile cases in Michigan and nationwide. He won a $25 million verdict -- later overturned -- against "The Jenny Jones Show" after a male guest shot and killed a gay man who went on the TV show to reveal a crush on him.
He defended Nathaniel Abraham, who at age 11 was among the youngest people ever charged as an adult with first-degree murder after he shot and killed a passer-by with a rifle. (Abraham was convicted of second-degree murder and sentenced to juvenile custody until age 21.)
Fieger also has represented families of the Columbine school shooting victims; fans injured during the brawl at the November 2004 Detroit Pistons-Indiana Pacers game; and two elderly women who drowned when their boat overturned on New York's Lake George.
By all accounts, Fieger is a brilliant trial lawyer, a well-prepared, intelligent pit bull who fights fiercely for his clients and picks apart witnesses during cross examination. His oratory style and communication skills -- he majored in theater and got a master's degree in speech at the University of Michigan -- resonate with jurors and play well on television.
Fieger has appeared on the syndicated show "Power of Attorney," hosted his own Detroit radio show and given commentary on Court TV and other cable shows. Fans have devoted a Web site to their hero,
www.fansoffieger.com.
"He likes the limelight," says Robert Sedler, a constitutional law professor at Wayne State University who worked with Fieger to challenge the state's ban on assisted suicide. "But I don't think anybody likes their own cases in the limelight. When your office is being searched ... I'm sure Geoff or anybody else would wish this had not happened."
Others think many of Fieger's problems would disappear if he would tone down some of his theatrics.
"He's an extraordinarily gifted advocate. There is no question about it," says Thomas Kienbaum, an employment lawyer for corporations and former president of the State Bar of Michigan. "But I've always been disappointed he would see the need to push the envelope so far with all his talent."