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Frohnmayer threatens defamation suit

https://uomatters.com/2011/06/frohnmayer-threatens-defamation-suit.html Frohnmayer threatens defamation suit By uomatters on 06/11/2011 6/9/2011: UO Matters has put up a few posts about the SOS Audit Division investigation of UO President Emeritus Dave Frohnmayer’s peculiar golden parachute contracts with OUS and UO. Now he’s threatening us with a defamation lawsuit and “a claim for punitive damages.” From: “Dave Frohnmayer” Date: June 8, 2011 3:16:49 PM PDT To: (Professor X) Subject: Re: public records request, Frohnmayer, Grier contracts and job descriptions Dear Professor X and Colleagues: A cursory call to the Oregon Secretary of State confirms that the Audits Division is NOT “currently investigating” my contractual arrangements. Professor X’s assertion, as he has communicated it, is actionable as defamation per se, and in view of his course of conduct in recent years, likely subject to proof of actual malice that could justify a claim for punitive damages. Dave Frohnmayer Sent from my iPhone Dave’s an awesome texter, for an old guy. I’d have cooled off and thought better of sending this before I’d pecked out half as much spittle. Update: In fairness to Frohnmayer, from what I’ve been able to piece together on this so far it appears the Audit Division had not told him they were looking into his contracts. They also apparently hadn’t told Secretary of State Kate Brown. So, presumably, when Dave called her she said something like “I’ve never heard of this” and he ran with that. An honest mistake, and UO Matters has no plans to seek punitive damages from Professor Frohnmayer, despite his course of conduct in recent years. We just want him to explain his special retirement and sabbatical deals, and repay the retroactive summer salary Russ gave him.

Frohnmayer threatens defamation suit

https://uomatters.com/2011/06/frohnmayer-threatens-defamation-suit.html#comment-438539

Frohnmayer threatens defamation suit

https://uomatters.com/2011/06/frohnmayer-threatens-defamation-suit.html By uomatters on 06/11/2011 6/9/2011: UO Matters has put up a few posts about the SOS Audit Division investigation of UO President Emeritus Dave Frohnmayer’s peculiar golden parachute contracts with OUS and UO. Now he’s threatening us with a defamation lawsuit and “a claim for punitive damages.” From: “Dave Frohnmayer” Date: June 8, 2011 3:16:49 PM PDT To: (Professor X) Subject: Re: public records request, Frohnmayer, Grier contracts and job descriptions Dear Professor X and Colleagues: A cursory call to the Oregon Secretary of State confirms that the Audits Division is NOT “currently investigating” my contractual arrangements. Professor X’s assertion, as he has communicated it, is actionable as defamation per se, and in view of his course of conduct in recent years, likely subject to proof of actual malice that could justify a claim for punitive damages. Dave Frohnmayer Sent from my iPhone Dave’s an awesome texter, for an old guy. I’d have cooled off and thought better of sending this before I’d pecked out half as much spittle. Update: In fairness to Frohnmayer, from what I’ve been able to piece together on this so far it appears the Audit Division had not told him they were looking into his contracts. They also apparently hadn’t told Secretary of State Kate Brown. So, presumably, when Dave called her she said something like “I’ve never heard of this” and he ran with that. An honest mistake, and UO Matters has no plans to seek punitive damages from Professor Frohnmayer, despite his course of conduct in recent years. We just want him to explain his special retirement and sabbatical deals, and repay the retroactive summer salary Russ gave him. DefamationFrohnmayer salary and perks uomatters 2 Comments Anonymous 06/10/2011 Wow. Must of touched a nerve. Reply Anonymous 06/10/2011 Imagine that, publicly stated misinformation touching a nerve. Give it up guys.

Reputation For Rent

https://www.wweek.com/portland/article-21195-reputation-for-rent.html Once-secret testimony reveals Dave Frohnmayer was a paid witness for big tobacco against the state of Oregon. Expand By NIGEL JAQUISS September 24, 2013 at 5:01 pm PDT There may be no résumé in Oregon public life more impressive than the one that belongs to Dave Frohnmayer. Rhodes scholar, state attorney general, University of Oregon president: Frohnmayer is regarded not only as one of the state's top legal minds but as someone who has fought for the public interest in venues ranging from the Oregon Legislature to the U.S. Supreme Court. But Frohnmayer recently played another role far from the spotlight, as revealed in once-secret testimony in a major legal case against the state. In that case, major tobacco companies challenged the state of Oregon's right to continue receiving payments under a massive tobacco industry settlement. And the star witness and paid expert for Big Tobacco against the state of Oregon: Dave Frohnmayer. In April, Frohnmayer appeared as an expert witness on behalf of the tobacco companies in front of a closed-door arbitration panel in Chicago. The Oregon Department of Justice released Frohnmayer's testimony to WW in response to a public records request. In an interview, Frohnmayer tells WW he simply provided what he says was unbiased, objective testimony. And he says he would have provided the same testimony had he instead been hired by the state of Oregon or called by the three-judge panel as an independent witness. But neither of those things happened; instead, Frohnmayer appeared as a paid witness for tobacco firms trying to get out of making payments to the state of Oregon under the tobacco settlement reached more than a decade ago. Frohnmayer's testimony reinforced the tobacco companies' claims against the state. Frohnmayer says his testimony for the tobacco companies was squarely in the public's interest, because his contention was that the state could have enforced the settlement more aggressively against smaller tobacco companies. "I testified that the powers of the Oregon attorney general are expansive," Frohnmayer says. "That's totally consistent with my public service from the day I entered the Legislature." In 1998, seven major tobacco companies—including Philip Morris, R.J. Reynolds, Brown & Williamson, and Lorillard—reached a $206 billion settlement with 46 states that had sued to recover tobacco-related health-care costs borne by taxpayers. Frohnmayer, then UO president, was named to a three-member panel to decide how some of the money should be divvied up. As its share of the settlement, Oregon would get about $80 million a year for 25 years. But smaller tobacco companies didn't take part in the settlement. Instead, they agreed to pay into escrow accounts in states where they sold products. Those payments were supposed to level the playing field by reducing the smaller players' ability to undercut the big companies and create reserves for future settlements. In 2006, Big Tobacco accused all the states, including Oregon, of failing to enforce the smaller companies' part of the settlement and withheld partial payment. Since then, Oregon officials have been fighting to get the full tobacco settlement payments reinstated. "We could have given up $80 million a year," says Oregon DOJ spokesman Jeff Manning. "The downside risk for the state was enormous." The dispute between states and Big Tobacco went to an arbitration hearing on April 26. And that's where Frohnmayer took the stand for the tobacco companies. Frohnmayer served as Oregon attorney general from 1981 through 1991 after three terms in the Oregon House. He lost the 1990 governor's race to Democrat Barbara Roberts and later became dean of the UO School of Law. In 1994, he became president of the university, where he oversaw 15 years of rapid growth. Frohnmayer now works for the Eugene law firm of Harrang Long Gary Rudnick, which has represented Philip Morris in the past. He bills as much as $550 an hour (but declined to say how much tobacco companies paid him to testify). In addition, he gets a $257,000 annual pension from the Public Employees Retirement System and $101,000 a year as a part-time law professor at UO. (Harrang Long is also UO's law firm, billing $647,000 since March 2012.) His testimony began with highlights of his long legal and political career. The tobacco industry attorney noted that Frohnmayer as AG won six out of seven cases he argued before the U.S. Supreme Court—a record unmatched by his peers. Big Tobacco's lawyers were keen to prove that the state of Oregon had failed to exercise all of its power to go after payments from the small tobacco companies. The state, meanwhile, said it had indeed gone after smaller companies and had used all its authority under the law to do so. State officials said that in order to do more to regulate tobacco sales, they would need the Legislature to grant them new powers. Frohnmayer's testimony backed up Big Tobacco's claim that the state had all the authority it needed. "And what did you conclude, professor, with regard to these specific measures that you identified?" asked Kevin Schwartz of the New York firm Wachtell Lipton, one of the tobacco companies' attorneys. "I concluded that Oregon did possess the powers that were in question," Frohnmayer replied. He added that he had not reached a conclusion about the state's actions under the tobacco settlement. "And are you offering any opinion on whether Oregon was obligated in some way to take these particular measures?" Schwartz asked. "No, I am not." Frohnmayer replied. On cross-examination, the state's attorney, David Markowitz, pressed the argument that the state of Oregon had followed the same legal precedents in the tobacco case as it had when Frohnmayer was attorney general. Markowitz also attacked Frohnmayer's claims of neutrality. He noted that Frohnmayer's law firm represents Philip Morris in two large, long-running lawsuits. In one case, a Multnomah County jury awarded the estate of a deceased janitor $79.5 million. Philip Morris' appeal ground on for 14 years, finally concluding with a verdict for the plaintiff last year. The state gets 60 percent of such awards. But Frohnmayer's firm argued Oregon's share should be covered by money paid under the tobacco industry settlement. Frohnmayer testified that he had helped Harrang Long lawyers prepare appellate arguments on behalf of Philip Morris but had no other involvement in his law firm's tobacco cases. Markowitz noted another lawsuit against the state of Oregon in which Frohnmayer was intimately involved: the case of Mark Long, the former Energy Department director who was criminally investigated for allegedly steering a public contract to Cylvia Hayes, Gov. John Kitzhaber's companion. Long was cleared of wrongdoing. The Harrang Long firm—founded in part by Mark Long's father, Stan Long, a former deputy to Frohnmayer—filed a $7.5 million suit against the state on behalf of Mark Long. (The state has since settled the case for $1 million.) In an interview with WW, Frohnmayer says the points Markowitz raised were "irrelevant" and insists he had no interest in whether the tobacco companies or the state of Oregon prevailed—even though the tobacco companies were paying for his testimony. "I expressed no view on whether the state of Oregon should win or lose," Frohnmayer says. On Sept. 10, the trial panel sided with the state of Oregon against the tobacco companies and ordered the companies to reimburse the state $9 million in withheld payments. Frohnmayer's decision to work for Big Tobacco in this case is now being questioned by veteran Oregon lawyers who agreed to review his testimony at WW's request. “I’m a huge fan of Dave Frohnmayer, so this puzzles me,” says Dan Skerritt, a partner at the Tonkon Torp firm. “The range of the tobacco companies' behavior has been documented as somewhere between fraudulent and disingenuous for decades. I'm interested to hear Mr. Frohnmayer's explanation why he decided to testify for them." Bob Stoll, a founder of the Stoll Berne law firm, which has sued Big Tobacco in the past, echoes Skerritt's concern. "It's disappointing that somebody with such a stellar reputation would use that reputation for money from such a reprehensible industry,” Stoll says. The state, he adds, is better off for the verdict the panel reached, but Frohnmayer's reputation is not. "His testimony is something that could have hurt the state for which he's done so much, and it could have had enormous financial costs to the state for years to come," Stoll says. Frohnmayer says he thinks his critics lack context. "I'm surprised they would say that," he says. "It's odd for lawyers to opine about a case they're not involved in." WWeek 2015 Willamette Week’s reporting has concrete impacts that change laws, force action from civic leaders, and drive compromised politicians from public office. Support WW's journalism today.

UO economics professor files complaint against UO general counsel and lawyers

https://www.wweek.com/portland/blog-30557-state-bar-dimisses-uo-professors-complaint-against-lawyers-involved-in-the-energy-department-investigation.html Sami Edge June 11, 2013 Last week, University of Oregon economics professor Bill Harbaugh filed a complaint with the Oregon State Bar, alleging Eugene lawyers Bill Gary and Sharon Rudnick misled a judge. Gary and Rudnick are partners at the Harrang Long Gary Rudnick law firm, which has been representing the UO administration in recent union negotiations. The bar complaint (PDF) also alleges UO General Counsel Randy Geller of participating in the deceit by “use(ing) his public office” to withhold — and circumvent attempts to claim — public records regarding the event. The accusations pertain to a circumstance in which Harbaugh believes the law firm was rewarded recompense in legal fees they were unable to accrue after suing the office of the attorney general for the mishandling of public records during a contract investigation that involved the son of Stan Long, who is one of HLGR’s founders. After reviewing the case, a county judge mandated a $500,000 reimbursement to be paid to Long for fees he incurred while prosecuting his public records lawsuit. The judge added an extra 10 percent to the reimbursement for the positive impact the case made toward the handling of public records, making the total reimbursement $550,000. According to Harbaugh, the issue lies in the numbers. Dave Frohnmayer — former UO president and current law professor working for HLGR — was compensated for his work at $550 an hour. Based on UO records, his legal fees in UO-related work range from $260-$270 per hour. According to HLGR, Frohnmayer’s standard legal fee for non-government clients is $550. However, HLGR offers a “significantly discounted” hourly rate for the university. Harbaugh claims the increased rate described to the judge led to an exorbitantly high pay-out for missed opportunities. In an email to Willamette Week, Portland’s alt-weekly paper, Gary claimed the fee difference instead stems from a discount agreement between HLGR and the UO — not an attempt to circumvent the Department of Justice. “The Firm sometimes considers alternative fee arrangements based upon the nature or volume of work involved,” he wrote. “The Firm has agreed to perform work for the University at discounted rates. We are not aware of anyone other than Dr. Harbaugh who has expressed concern about our willingness to provide a discount to the University.” Where the UO General Counsel is concerned, Harbaugh claims the affidavit Geller presented in support of HLGR’s claim for legal fees was inaccurate and a conflict of interest. In the affidavit, Geller argues for the compensation of HLGR due to the opportunity they lost when he was unable to hire them to represent the UO in legal matters because of their participation in the original investigation. The affidavit was signed in July of 2012. HLGR had been participating in UO union negotiations for the UO since February 2013. Geller justified his statements in an email to Willamette Week, claiming that although HLGR was contracted to work on union matters in February — an issue that does not require state approval for choice of legal firm — he was unable to hire them to work on other state-regulated issues further along in the year because of the investigation case. Harbaugh filed the complaint in an attempt to generate a critical review of the general counsel’s affairs. “UO’s General Counsel and the HLGR attorneys worked together to try and get $860,000 for HLGR, from state taxpayers,” he said. “I thought that it was wrong for Randy Geller to go along with Bill Gary’s attempt to get that money, by not telling the judge about the substantial legal work he’d given HLGR on the faculty union. That seems pretty far below ‘the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth’…I wanted the bar to decide if these actions were ethical.” Willamette Week reports that the the Bar is considering the complaint.

https://nadiasindi.blogspot.com/2024/12/someone-sued-dave-frohnmayer-and-won.html?m=1

https://nadiasindi.blogspot.com/2024/12/someone-sued-dave-frohnmayer-and-won.html?m=1 The Writings and Thoughts of Nadia Sindi Sunday, December 29, 2024 Someone Sued Dave Frohnmayer. and won a settlement Yes, someone sued Dave Frohnmayer, the former Oregon Attorney General, and won a settlement: [1, 2] • Whistleblower settlement: A Portland-area man won a reported seven-figure whistleblower settlement from Wells Fargo after Frohnmayer blocked his Social Security number and prevented him from getting a job. Frohnmayer was also involved in a lawsuit over the incorporation of Rajneeshpuram, a communal city near Antelope, Oregon. In 1983, Frohnmayer issued an opinion and lawsuit challenging the city's incorporation, citing violations of the separation of church and state. In 1985, U.S. District Court Judge Helen Frye ruled in favor of Oregon, invalidating the status of Rajneeshpuram. [1] Generative AI is experimental. [1] https://international.uoregon.edu/rajneeshees-oregon-communal-experiment[2] https://www.wweek.com/news/business/2018/03/25/portland-area-man-wins-reported-seven-figure-whistleblower-settlement-from-wells-fargo/ Not all images can be exported from Search. Nadia Sindi at Sunday, December 29, 2024

Samuel v. Frohnmayer

https://law.justia.com/cases/oregon/court-of-appeals/1989/770-p-2d-914.html

https://www.blogger.com/profile/06255957339056725834

https://www.blogger.com/profile/06255957339056725834 I ran five times for Public offices. Each time I was defrauded by Voter Fraud! It was committed by the Lane County Criminal Officials, who are complicit with the dangerous criminal, above the law, Tyrant, anarchist former A.G. Dave Frohnmayer! 2003 for LCC Board.I got %48.9. Later it was changed to 30% by the Lane County Criminal Officials! 2005 for 4J School Board: http://www.nadiasindi.blogspot.com 2008 for Lane County Commissioner seat: http://www.nadiasindi.110mb.com. Was given to Handy, the most inept, unfit, to serve. Later he was locked out of his office for his unethical misconduct! 2010 for the City Council:Mayor 4 all kinds of corruption Piercy blatantly, dismissed my candidacy from Day one http://www.facebook.com/pages/Nadia-Sindi-for-City-Councilor-Ward-5/243499929774?v=photos&ref=ts#!/pages/Nadia-Sindi-for-City-Councilor-Ward-5/243499929774?v=wall 2012 for Lane County Commissioner N. Seat. It was given Pat Farr who was arrested for DUI ! Oregon Representative for: www.StudentLoanJustice.Org Government Liaison, Facilitator, Conflict Resolution. Interpreter/Translator.

Once-secret testimony reveals Dave Frohnmayer was a paid witness for big tobacco against the state of Oregon.

https://www.wweek.com/portland/article-21195-reputation-for-rent.html Reputation For Rent Once-secret testimony reveals Dave Frohnmayer was a paid witness for big tobacco against the state of Oregon. Expand By NIGEL JAQUISS September 24, 2013 at 5:01 pm PDT There may be no résumé in Oregon public life more impressive than the one that belongs to Dave Frohnmayer. Rhodes scholar, state attorney general, University of Oregon president: Frohnmayer is regarded not only as one of the state's top legal minds but as someone who has fought for the public interest in venues ranging from the Oregon Legislature to the U.S. Supreme Court. But Frohnmayer recently played another role far from the spotlight, as revealed in once-secret testimony in a major legal case against the state. In that case, major tobacco companies challenged the state of Oregon's right to continue receiving payments under a massive tobacco industry settlement. And the star witness and paid expert for Big Tobacco against the state of Oregon: Dave Frohnmayer. In April, Frohnmayer appeared as an expert witness on behalf of the tobacco companies in front of a closed-door arbitration panel in Chicago. The Oregon Department of Justice released Frohnmayer's testimony to WW in response to a public records request. In an interview, Frohnmayer tells WW he simply provided what he says was unbiased, objective testimony. And he says he would have provided the same testimony had he instead been hired by the state of Oregon or called by the three-judge panel as an independent witness. But neither of those things happened; instead, Frohnmayer appeared as a paid witness for tobacco firms trying to get out of making payments to the state of Oregon under the tobacco settlement reached more than a decade ago. Frohnmayer's testimony reinforced the tobacco companies' claims against the state. Frohnmayer says his testimony for the tobacco companies was squarely in the public's interest, because his contention was that the state could have enforced the settlement more aggressively against smaller tobacco companies. "I testified that the powers of the Oregon attorney general are expansive," Frohnmayer says. "That's totally consistent with my public service from the day I entered the Legislature." In 1998, seven major tobacco companies—including Philip Morris, R.J. Reynolds, Brown & Williamson, and Lorillard—reached a $206 billion settlement with 46 states that had sued to recover tobacco-related health-care costs borne by taxpayers. Frohnmayer, then UO president, was named to a three-member panel to decide how some of the money should be divvied up. As its share of the settlement, Oregon would get about $80 million a year for 25 years. But smaller tobacco companies didn't take part in the settlement. Instead, they agreed to pay into escrow accounts in states where they sold products. Those payments were supposed to level the playing field by reducing the smaller players' ability to undercut the big companies and create reserves for future settlements. In 2006, Big Tobacco accused all the states, including Oregon, of failing to enforce the smaller companies' part of the settlement and withheld partial payment. Since then, Oregon officials have been fighting to get the full tobacco settlement payments reinstated. "We could have given up $80 million a year," says Oregon DOJ spokesman Jeff Manning. "The downside risk for the state was enormous." The dispute between states and Big Tobacco went to an arbitration hearing on April 26. And that's where Frohnmayer took the stand for the tobacco companies. Frohnmayer served as Oregon attorney general from 1981 through 1991 after three terms in the Oregon House. He lost the 1990 governor's race to Democrat Barbara Roberts and later became dean of the UO School of Law. In 1994, he became president of the university, where he oversaw 15 years of rapid growth. Frohnmayer now works for the Eugene law firm of Harrang Long Gary Rudnick, which has represented Philip Morris in the past. He bills as much as $550 an hour (but declined to say how much tobacco companies paid him to testify). In addition, he gets a $257,000 annual pension from the Public Employees Retirement System and $101,000 a year as a part-time law professor at UO. (Harrang Long is also UO's law firm, billing $647,000 since March 2012.) His testimony began with highlights of his long legal and political career. The tobacco industry attorney noted that Frohnmayer as AG won six out of seven cases he argued before the U.S. Supreme Court—a record unmatched by his peers. Big Tobacco's lawyers were keen to prove that the state of Oregon had failed to exercise all of its power to go after payments from the small tobacco companies. The state, meanwhile, said it had indeed gone after smaller companies and had used all its authority under the law to do so. State officials said that in order to do more to regulate tobacco sales, they would need the Legislature to grant them new powers. Frohnmayer's testimony backed up Big Tobacco's claim that the state had all the authority it needed. "And what did you conclude, professor, with regard to these specific measures that you identified?" asked Kevin Schwartz of the New York firm Wachtell Lipton, one of the tobacco companies' attorneys. "I concluded that Oregon did possess the powers that were in question," Frohnmayer replied. He added that he had not reached a conclusion about the state's actions under the tobacco settlement. "And are you offering any opinion on whether Oregon was obligated in some way to take these particular measures?" Schwartz asked. "No, I am not." Frohnmayer replied. On cross-examination, the state's attorney, David Markowitz, pressed the argument that the state of Oregon had followed the same legal precedents in the tobacco case as it had when Frohnmayer was attorney general. Markowitz also attacked Frohnmayer's claims of neutrality. He noted that Frohnmayer's law firm represents Philip Morris in two large, long-running lawsuits. In one case, a Multnomah County jury awarded the estate of a deceased janitor $79.5 million. Philip Morris' appeal ground on for 14 years, finally concluding with a verdict for the plaintiff last year. The state gets 60 percent of such awards. But Frohnmayer's firm argued Oregon's share should be covered by money paid under the tobacco industry settlement. Frohnmayer testified that he had helped Harrang Long lawyers prepare appellate arguments on behalf of Philip Morris but had no other involvement in his law firm's tobacco cases. Markowitz noted another lawsuit against the state of Oregon in which Frohnmayer was intimately involved: the case of Mark Long, the former Energy Department director who was criminally investigated for allegedly steering a public contract to Cylvia Hayes, Gov. John Kitzhaber's companion. Long was cleared of wrongdoing. The Harrang Long firm—founded in part by Mark Long's father, Stan Long, a former deputy to Frohnmayer—filed a $7.5 million suit against the state on behalf of Mark Long. (The state has since settled the case for $1 million.) In an interview with WW, Frohnmayer says the points Markowitz raised were "irrelevant" and insists he had no interest in whether the tobacco companies or the state of Oregon prevailed—even though the tobacco companies were paying for his testimony. "I expressed no view on whether the state of Oregon should win or lose," Frohnmayer says. On Sept. 10, the trial panel sided with the state of Oregon against the tobacco companies and ordered the companies to reimburse the state $9 million in withheld payments. Frohnmayer's decision to work for Big Tobacco in this case is now being questioned by veteran Oregon lawyers who agreed to review his testimony at WW's request. “I’m a huge fan of Dave Frohnmayer, so this puzzles me,” says Dan Skerritt, a partner at the Tonkon Torp firm. “The range of the tobacco companies' behavior has been documented as somewhere between fraudulent and disingenuous for decades. I'm interested to hear Mr. Frohnmayer's explanation why he decided to testify for them." Bob Stoll, a founder of the Stoll Berne law firm, which has sued Big Tobacco in the past, echoes Skerritt's concern. "It's disappointing that somebody with such a stellar reputation would use that reputation for money from such a reprehensible industry,” Stoll says. The state, he adds, is better off for the verdict the panel reached, but Frohnmayer's reputation is not. "His testimony is something that could have hurt the state for which he's done so much, and it could have had enormous financial costs to the state for years to come," Stoll says. Frohnmayer says he thinks his critics lack context. "I'm surprised they would say that," he says. "It's odd for lawyers to opine about a case they're not involved in." WWeek 2015

UO economics professor files complaint against UO general counsel and lawyers

https://dailyemerald.com/43226/news/uo-economics-professor-files-complaint-against-uo-general-counsel-and-lawyers/?return UO economics professor files complaint against UO general counsel and lawyers Sami Edge June 11, 2013 Last week, University of Oregon economics professor Bill Harbaugh filed a complaint with the Oregon State Bar, alleging Eugene lawyers Bill Gary and Sharon Rudnick misled a judge. Gary and Rudnick are partners at the Harrang Long Gary Rudnick law firm, which has been representing the UO administration in recent union negotiations. The bar complaint (PDF) also alleges UO General Counsel Randy Geller of participating in the deceit by “use(ing) his public office” to withhold — and circumvent attempts to claim — public records regarding the event. The accusations pertain to a circumstance in which Harbaugh believes the law firm was rewarded recompense in legal fees they were unable to accrue after suing the office of the attorney general for the mishandling of public records during a contract investigation that involved the son of Stan Long, who is one of HLGR’s founders. After reviewing the case, a county judge mandated a $500,000 reimbursement to be paid to Long for fees he incurred while prosecuting his public records lawsuit. The judge added an extra 10 percent to the reimbursement for the positive impact the case made toward the handling of public records, making the total reimbursement $550,000. According to Harbaugh, the issue lies in the numbers. Dave Frohnmayer — former UO president and current law professor working for HLGR — was compensated for his work at $550 an hour. Based on UO records, his legal fees in UO-related work range from $260-$270 per hour. According to HLGR, Frohnmayer’s standard legal fee for non-government clients is $550. However, HLGR offers a “significantly discounted” hourly rate for the university. Harbaugh claims the increased rate described to the judge led to an exorbitantly high pay-out for missed opportunities. In an email to Willamette Week, Portland’s alt-weekly paper, Gary claimed the fee difference instead stems from a discount agreement between HLGR and the UO — not an attempt to circumvent the Department of Justice. “The Firm sometimes considers alternative fee arrangements based upon the nature or volume of work involved,” he wrote. “The Firm has agreed to perform work for the University at discounted rates. We are not aware of anyone other than Dr. Harbaugh who has expressed concern about our willingness to provide a discount to the University.” Where the UO General Counsel is concerned, Harbaugh claims the affidavit Geller presented in support of HLGR’s claim for legal fees was inaccurate and a conflict of interest. In the affidavit, Geller argues for the compensation of HLGR due to the opportunity they lost when he was unable to hire them to represent the UO in legal matters because of their participation in the original investigation. The affidavit was signed in July of 2012. HLGR had been participating in UO union negotiations for the UO since February 2013. Geller justified his statements in an email to Willamette Week, claiming that although HLGR was contracted to work on union matters in February — an issue that does not require state approval for choice of legal firm — he was unable to hire them to work on other state-regulated issues further along in the year because of the investigation case. Harbaugh filed the complaint in an attempt to generate a critical review of the general counsel’s affairs. “UO’s General Counsel and the HLGR attorneys worked together to try and get $860,000 for HLGR, from state taxpayers,” he said. “I thought that it was wrong for Randy Geller to go along with Bill Gary’s attempt to get that money, by not telling the judge about the substantial legal work he’d given HLGR on the faculty union. That seems pretty far below ‘the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth’…I wanted the bar to decide if these actions were ethical.” Willamette Week reports that the the Bar is considering the complaint.

Dave Frohnmayer Crimes!

UO economics professor files complaint against UO general counsel and lawyers https://dailyemerald.com/66209/archives/state-bar-reassesses-frohnmayer/ https://www.thefire.org/research-learn/fire-letter-university-oregon-president-dave-frohnmayer-february-11-2005 https://nadiasindi.blogspot.com/2024/12/someone-sued-dave-frohnmayer-and-won.html?m=1

UO economics professor files complaint against UO general counsel and lawyers

https://dailyemerald.com/43226/news/uo-economics-professor-files-complaint-against-uo-general-counsel-and-lawyers/?return

The Writings and Thoughts of Nadia Sindi

https://nadiasindi.blogspot.com/2024/12/someone-sued-dave-frohnmayer-and-won.html?m=1

Oregon Hate Crime Reform Bill Hits a Stumbling Block in Salem

https://www.wweek.com/news/state/2019/05/30/oregon-hate-crime-reform-bill-hits-a-stumbling-block-in-salem/

Portland-Area Man Wins Reported Seven-Figure Whistleblower Settlement from Wells Fargo

https://www.wweek.com/news/business/2018/03/25/portland-area-man-wins-reported-seven-figure-whistleblower-settlement-from-wells-fargo/

Wells Fargo and Moral Emotions

https://ethicsunwrapped.utexas.edu/case-study/wells-fargo-and-moral-emotions

The Former Khmer Rouge Slave Who Became a Whistleblower Against Wells Fargo

https://constantinecannon.com/whistleblower/whistleblower-insider-blog/former-khmer-rouge-slave-became-whistleblower-wells-fargo/

The Former Khmer Rouge Slave Who Blew the Whistle on Wells Fargo

https://constantinecannon.com/whistleblower/whistleblower-insider-blog/former-khmer-rouge-slave-became-whistleblower-wells-fargo/ https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/24/business/wells-fargo-whistleblower-duke-tran.html "The Former Khmer Rouge Slave Who Blew the Whistle on Wells Fargo Share full article Duke Tran, at his home in Damascus, Ore., has waged a nearly four-year legal fight against his former employer Wells Fargo, arguing that he was fired for blowing the whistle on deceptive practices. Credit...Amanda Lucier for The New York Times By Emily Flitter March 24, 2018 After Duke Tran escaped from slavery, but before he became a millionaire, he was a Wells Fargo employee. He worked at the bank’s debt-collections center near Portland, Ore., talking on the phone to customers who owed Wells Fargo money. It wasn’t glamorous, but the job enabled him to afford a two-story suburban house with mustard-colored aluminum siding. After more than three decades in the United States, Mr. Tran felt that he was the living embodiment of the American dream. And then it all started to crumble. In 2014, according to Mr. Tran, his boss ordered him to lie to customers who were facing foreclosure. When Mr. Tran refused, he said, he was fired. He worried that he wouldn’t be able to make his monthly mortgage payments and that he was about to become homeless. Joining a cadre of former employees claiming they were mistreated for speaking out about problems at the bank, Mr. Tran sued. He argued in court filings that he had been fired in retaliation for blowing the whistle on misconduct at the giant San Francisco-based bank. Mr. Tran said he didn’t want his job back — he wanted Wells Fargo to admit that it had been wrong to fire him and wrong to mislead customers who were facing foreclosure. It was a long shot. Banks generally are happy to reach private settlements, but loath to publicly admit wrongdoing, which can open them up to litigation. But Mr. Tran, who fled Vietnam as a teenager and then was enslaved by the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia, wasn’t daunted by long odds. And so Mr. Tran, who is in his mid-50s and speaks English with a heavy Vietnamese accent and jumbled grammar, became the latest foe to take on Wells Fargo. The bank already faced widespread condemnation from regulators, lawmakers and enraged customers for opening fake accounts and otherwise deceiving and defrauding its customers. But the conduct that so unsettled Mr. Tran was not something the bank had previously been accused of; he was alone in leveling the accusations. He said the bank was trying to cover up the fact that it did not have the documents to prove some of its customers owed money it was trying to collect. To further his lawsuit, he opened his life to intense scrutiny, used vacation time at his new job to attend meetings and court dates, and told and retold the story of his experiences at the bank, which maintained that Mr. Tran had been fired for poor performance and that there had been no cover-up of missing documents. He would not go away. “I have a story to tell,” he said in an interview with The New York Times. “This is a true story. I blew the whistle. They all know.” Captured at 17 Mr. Tran calls himself Duke now, but his name at birth was Tran Duy Duc. He was born in Vietnam in 1961, the son of a colonel in the South Vietnamese military fighting alongside American troops. Mr. Tran was 13 when, in 1975, the North Vietnamese took over the government and sent his father to a prison camp as punishment for helping the Americans. When released four years later, Mr. Tran’s father paid to sneak Mr. Tran over the Cambodian border. “You have to leave,” his father told him. As soon as he got to Cambodia, though, Mr. Tran was captured by fighters for the genocidal Khmer Rouge regime. They forced him to drink vinegar, believing he had swallowed gold and family jewels that the vinegar would help expel. Then they made the 17-year-old their slave, forcing him to dig wells. “Sometimes the soldiers got drunk and took me out and put AK-47s to my head so I would pass out,” Mr. Tran said. Eight months after he was caught, Mr. Tran’s captors traded him to aid workers who carried humanitarian supplies. He still remembers the items that bought his freedom: a kilo of rice, two boxes of canned tuna, two boxes of sardines in tomato sauce, antibiotics and some other medical supplies. The aid workers took him to Thailand. From there, the International Organization for Migration helped him reach the United States. “I am so grateful,” Mr. Tran said. “Here I am, an American citizen.” His first job in America was scrubbing pots in a restaurant kitchen. Soon after that, he got his first call center job, in the payment processing division of a local bank. He said in an interview that he had worked in call centers for a total of 25 years. In 2002, he began working in a call center for Wells Fargo’s collections unit in Vancouver, Wash. In March 2013, he transferred to another Wells Fargo unit, the home equity division, in nearby Beaverton, Ore. Mr. Tran was proud of his work. In an interview, he described himself as “a really model employee” who got internal recognition at Wells for his good work. Image After the Red Cross traded medicine and sardines for Mr. Tran’s freedom from the Khmer Rouge and helped him get to the United States, he was given this identification card.Credit...Amanda Lucier for The New York Times The division was responsible for a portfolio of home-equity loans that Wells Fargo had bought from another company at the peak of the financial crisis in 2008. As the bank examined the loans in 2013, employees realized that Wells Fargo was missing some of the paperwork that proved the borrowers owed money to the bank. Tom Goyda, a Wells Fargo spokesman, confirmed the existence of the problem. He said 120 of the loans had initially appeared to be missing their underlying documents. Mr. Goyda said the bank was confident that the loans Mr. Tran cited were valid and that it had handled them properly. He said Mr. Tran had only limited visibility of the bank’s internal system and that he did not have access to all of the borrowers’ information. Nine months into his new job, Mr. Tran answered a phone call from a Wells Fargo customer in Lexington, N.C. His name was Walter Coles. Mr. Coles, who is now 88, had recently opened a letter that Wells Fargo sent to his wife, Jacqueline. He handled her affairs because she has Alzheimer’s. The letter said that Mrs. Coles owed Wells Fargo nearly $90,000 and that if she did not pay within 90 days the bank would foreclose on the Coleses’ house. Mr. Coles had credit card accounts with Wells Fargo, but this was the first he had heard of any $90,000 loan. “I knew that my wife hadn’t taken out a mortgage,” he said in an interview. “My house was paid off 35 years ago.” So he called Wells Fargo. On the phone with Mr. Tran, Mr. Coles asked for proof that his wife owed the money. Mr. Tran tried to pull up the Coles file on his computer, but he couldn’t find the loan documents. He told Mr. Coles that they were missing. Mr. Tran started calling various Wells Fargo offices to figure out what had happened, he said. He consulted bank archives in San Francisco and Roanoke, Va., to try to find the documents. “We were unable to locate the agreement. Document is not available,” a Wells employee reported in an email to Mr. Tran, which was reviewed by The Times. Another employee responded: “We have tried all avenues to find documents but no luck.” Mr. Tran talked to his boss, Peter LeDonne, about the situation. He said Mr. LeDonne had told him not to follow up with Mr. Coles. “They tell me: ‘It’s no problem. If the customer call back, you tell them it’s a balloon,’” Mr. Tran recalled, referring to a type of loan that would require Mr. Coles to repay the owed amount all at once. Through a Wells Fargo spokesman, Mr. LeDonne declined to comment for this article. ‘Not Something We Would Share’ Mr. Tran wasn’t the only Wells employee to receive that advice. In an April 2014 email to Mr. Tran and other employees, reviewed by The Times, a Wells Fargo manager, Cazzie Moreland, said that when the bank couldn’t find the documents proving a loan existed, “that is not something we would share with the customer under any circumstances.” Mr. Goyda, the bank spokesman, said Ms. Moreland’s email was “poorly worded, but it’s one email that was part of a larger communication and training effort.” He said the bank didn’t want customer service representatives, who didn’t have access to all of the bank’s document storage systems, to act hastily. “What we didn’t want was to have a customer call and to have the representative mistakenly tell them something,” Mr. Goyda said. Mr. Tran said in his lawsuit that he had felt uncomfortable as soon as he had seen how Mr. Coles’s inquiry was handled. Mr. Coles was insisting that he and his wife had never borrowed any money in the first place. He was — reasonably, in Mr. Tran’s view — demanding proof that any loan existed. Mr. Tran said he had shared his feelings with his boss. Before long, Mr. Tran said, he received another unsettling customer phone call. This time, it was from a woman named Nancy who said the bank had told her that she owed $165,000. She said she had not taken out a loan. “She was really emotional,” Mr. Tran said. “She said: ‘I have all my children live in my home. I don’t have money to pay. Where is my children going to live?’” Once again, the bank had no paperwork to prove that the borrower owed the money, Mr. Tran said. He said he had complained to his supervisor, Mr. LeDonne, and his boss’s boss. “I told him this is a fraud, I cannot be a part of that. He got upset,” Mr. Tran said. In a court filing last year, Mr. LeDonne said: “I had no knowledge that Mr. Tran reported or complained of what he believed to be an alleged Wells Fargo practice of deceiving customers regarding missing loan documents or other unlawful activities.” Image Wells Fargo headquarters in San Francisco. The bank has faced widespread condemnation from regulators, lawmakers and customers for opening fake accounts and otherwise deceiving and defrauding its customers.Credit...Max Whittaker for The New York Times On Nov. 12, 2014, Mr. Tran said, Mr. LeDonne called him into an office. A group of Mr. Tran’s superiors was waiting. They asked for his security badge and told him that he was fired. Mr. LeDonne and a Wells lawyer marched him out the front door. “I’m thinking I’m going to die,” Mr. Tran recalled. “From the time they walk me out that door, I don’t have any backup.” On the street, they told him that if he had any questions about why he was fired, he could call a number they gave him for a human resources representative. He called the number. An H.R. person told Mr. Tran that he had been fired for failing to orally respond to a customer whose call he had answered. Mr. Tran was mortified. He couldn’t sleep. He couldn’t bring himself to tell his wife, Ann, and their sons, Justin and Jimmy, that he had been fired. When they asked why he wasn’t going to work in the mornings, Mr. Tran said he was on vacation. When that excuse no longer seemed plausible, he invented another. “I thought, my God, I’ve lost my American dream,” he said. His wife worked in a dental equipment factory. She earned $17 per hour, and it was suddenly the family’s only income. Gnawing Anger After three months of unemployment, in February 2015 he landed a call center job at U.S. Bank, where he still works. Even with a new job, he remained angry about what he felt was his unfair firing. In June 2015, he sued Wells Fargo in federal court for retaliation and other claims. His lawyers argued that Wells had tried to silence him and, when that failed, fired him. Wells Fargo tried, through standard court procedures including a motion to dismiss, to kill the lawsuit, to no avail. Mr. Tran wanted to go to trial. He and his lawyers never specified how much money they wanted a jury to award Mr. Tran in damages and compensation, but they said in a court filing that it should be no more than $179 billion — a figure they knew was unrealistic. What Mr. Tran really wanted, he said, was to force Wells to publicly admit wrongdoing. Wells Fargo’s lawyers maintained that the bank had fired Mr. Tran for poor performance. They claimed Mr. Tran never reported anything to his superiors. Court filings indicate that they hoped to use inconsistencies in his deposition to prove he couldn’t show when or how he had complained about the lost loan documents. A trial was scheduled for last month in federal court in Portland. After years of discovery, the trial promised to dredge up unflattering information about Wells Fargo. The timing was bad: The bank was in the final stages of negotiating a painful settlement with the Federal Reserve, which would bar Wells Fargo from growing until it fixed its problems. The bank was trying to position itself as having moved past its era of malfeasance. With the trial three weeks away, Wells Fargo asked to engage in mediation, according to Mr. Tran’s lawyer, Michael Fuller. Mr. Fuller told Mr. Tran that it was possible Wells Fargo would try to settle the case. Mr. Fuller said in an interview in late January that he could not foresee Mr. Tran’s settling for less than $10 million. Mr. Tran did not want to settle. He wanted Wells Fargo to have to admit it was wrong. “They have so much money,” he said in a Feb. 2 interview. “They use that money to buy off the American justice system, and they never go to court.” He said he was considering not showing up to the meeting. “I’m ready to go to court,” he said. “I’m not going to settle.” The next day, Mr. Tran settled. He stopped returning phone calls seeking comment. People familiar with the settlement said it included a seven-figure payment to Mr. Tran. Mr. Coles, the Wells Fargo customer who said the bank had spent three years trying to collect money he never borrowed, laughed when told of the settlement’s size. “That’s good for him,” he said. “He hasn’t got anything to worry about now.” Mr. Coles is still battling the bank. “I think we should be compensated for the trouble they’ve caused us,” he said. Follow Emily Flitter on Twitter: @FlitterOnFraud. A version of this article appears in print on , Section BU, Page 1 of the New York edition with the headline: Ex-Slave Turned Whistle-Blower. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe See more on: Wells Fargo & Company, Khmer Rouge "