Free Republic

Injunction lays out the path for getting class-action certification for safe deposit box renters, lawyers say. The feds faced another setback in their quest to keep $85 million in assets seized in a raid without charging hundreds of safe deposit box renters with a crime. U.S. District Judge R. Gary Klausner issued a preliminary injunction July 16 in a lawsuit by several customers of Los Angeles-based U.S. Private Vaults (USPV), who alleged the FBI denied them due process by providing civil forfeiture notices that lacked "any legal basis" for seizing the contents of each box. The feds indicted USPV for...

LOS ANGELES – Attorney Michael Avenatti was arrested by Internal Revenue Service (IRS) agents Tuesday evening during a break in a disciplinary hearing in Los Angeles over allegations that the high-profile lawyer scammed a client out of $840,000. The arrest occurred around 6 p.m. outside the State Bar Court, where the State Bar of California has initiated proceedings against him. * * * Thom Mrozek, a spokesman for the U.S. Attorney's Office in Los Angeles, told Fox News that Avenatti was arrested on suspicion of violating his pre-trial release. * * * Avenatti was supposed to travel to New York...