Atty. James Beirne Contempt

1. 3/13/2012 Atty. James Beirne Contempt 1

2. Submitted by PinoyWatchDog.com
By Rene Villaroman with PWD Investigative
Team
3/13/2012 Atty. James Beirne Contempt 2

3. In 2005, Atty. Joel Bander began
representing more than 40
underpaid workers being denied
minimum wage and overtime pay
by the owner of Le Vien Homes,
Inc. and Taliavi Enterprises, two
companies that owned about half-
a-dozen board-and-care and rest
home facilities for the elderly or
mentally disadvantaged in
Southern Los Angeles County and
Northern Orange County.
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4. Immediately after it was known that
these 40-odd clients were being
represented by Atty. Bander,
Superior Court files indicated that
Bander began receiving reports of
intimidation and harassment from
his underpaid clients. In addition,
the business owner, Vivian Fermin,
allegedly was using her ability to
sponsor immigration petitions as a
bargaining chip to try to force the
dismissal of the underpaid workers‟
lawsuit.
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5. Le Vien Homes, Taliavi Enterprises and
Vivian Fermin were being represented
by Fil-Am attorney. This employer even
arranged for another attorney, Scott
Glovsky, to represent “retracting”
employees. Glovsky would send letters
of representation to Bander and then
just dismiss the employees‟ cases. “This
is not the job of a true worker‟s
advocate,” Bander stated.
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6. Beirne Unethically Represented
Employer and Employees
However, a different attorney‟s office
was the one that made the greatest
impact: the Law Office of James P.
Beirne. Atty. Bander told
PinoyWatchDog.com that in 2006, a
Bander client, one of the workers that
filed the lawsuit, received a call from
a Beirne staff member, Lita Brutas,
saying, “How can you be suing your
employer when they are sponsoring
you for your labor certification?”
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7. The anomaly here was that Beirne was
representing the workers for their labor
certification, but he was also
representing the owners of the
business as counsel for the lawsuit, a
practice that is totally unethical. In
addition, Ms. Brutas was the same
Beirne staff member that purportedly
arranged successive labor
certification petitions using fake
employers in the case of Mr. Rey
Villarica (PinoyWatchDog.com, Nov.
26, 2011 issue).
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8. “I was pretty incensed by the
complete lack of ethics of the
Beirne Law Office,” Bander told
PinoyWatchDog.com. “They were
co-presenting both the employer
and employee. Such a tactic was
way beyond ethical bounds.”
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9. Balita Media Owns Beirne Law Office
Bander recalls that when he recounted
the incident to a prominent Filipino-
American he was immediately
informed, “Don‟t you know that Balita
newspaper is the real owner of that law
office? Beirne does not own the law
office. He is not in charge. It is owned
by the newspaper owners, Anthony
Allen and Luchie Mendoza. It is an
open secret in the Filipino community.”
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10. In retrospect, Bander had no idea
how true that was. But it made
sense; any ethically managed law
firm would not call a client co-
represented with an employer and
threaten them, in essence,
choosing one client – the one with
more money – over the other.
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11. The Alleged Perpetrator
This dispute raged on, with false
declarations of scared employees
tendered to the court by Attorney
Glovsky and the Fil-Am attorney. That
situation has made those employees
no longer interested in the tens of
thousands of dollars of settlements;
they just wanted to forget everything.
PinoyWatchDog.com does not have
information whether those two lawyers
were aware that Beirne was
representing both employer and
employees.
3/13/2012 Atty. James Beirne Contempt 11

12. But, Vivian Fermin, Balita Media, Beirne
Law Office and its non-lawyer owners,
Anthony Allen and Luchie Mendoza-
Allen, still were not satisfied. As shown in
an accompanying story “How Bander‟s
Enemies Set Him Up for Fake Sex
Scandal”, PinoyWatchDog.com‟s
investigation has determined that it was
Vivian Fermin who was behind Myrna
Tiu‟s planning of the fictitious „Christina
San Jose‟ to malign Bander because he
was so successfully representing
Fermin‟s workers who were denied their
rightful wages.
3/13/2012 Atty. James Beirne Contempt 12

13. The PinoyWatchDog.com
Investigative Team has spoken with
the confidential investigator hired
by Bander to investigate Myrna Tiu,
who actually used her real name in
her communications with Bander
and his staff in Manila.
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14. Court filings in Manila contain detailed
text message exchanges between
former Bander staffer, Lotis Rosario, now
a leading clerk at the Philippine
Supreme Court, and a purported brother
of the fictitious „San Jose‟ seeking
money to reveal was behind the setup,
asked if Bander is staying in the
Discovery Suites in Ortigas. “Hardly
anyone knew where I was staying when
I went to Manila, for security concerns. I
am still that way,” Bander said. “I am still
cannot be sure of Balita Media‟s plans to
harm me.”
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15. When PinoyWatchDog.com asked
the investigator how could this
person know where Bander was
staying then? He responded, “I
learned that the brother of a Le Vein
homes staff member was the night
manager of Discovery Suites. It was
a coincidence. That is how Fermin
knew where Bander used to stay. I
could not find any other reason this
low-life trying to extort money from
Bander because Fermin didn‟t pay
them to know where he was
staying.”
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16. The investigator reported: “I personally
called Myrna Tiu from the cell phone
number she had provided Bander‟s
assistant. She admitted knowing Vivian
Fermin. But once I asked more she hung
up the phone.” Digging further, the
investigator tracked Tiu to a small
agricultural bank in Lucena, Lagua,
where he had some good connections.
He found the bank president who was
livid about being asked about Tiu,
stating “she swindled us for about a
million pesos using false real estate
documents as collateral.”
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17. During 2006 Bander remained quiet
regarding this fake criminal matter,
waiting for the investigation and
criminal process to play out.
However, Fermin and Balita were
just feeling uneasy because they
weren‟t getting any reaction from
Bander. On September 25, 2006,
then Balita Editor James Saspa,
wrote Bander‟s office seeking
comment on the fake charges,
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18. even one reported in the
newspaper purportedly existing in
Taguig that did not exist at all. It
has been reported that Saspa was
an illegal alien at the time he was
Balita‟s Editor, and they also used
an immigration petition over his
head to make him work beyond
the prescribed legal number of
hours at low wages.
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19. “I told them if they reported it I
would sue for defamation,” Bander
revealed. No story ever ran in Balita
until Rhony Laigo traveled to Manila
just to arrange for a Hold Detention
Order from the former corrupt
Arroyo administration. Laigo took
this action after Bander exposed
Balita Media‟s pattern of false
advertising regarding the true
circulation figures of Balita.
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20. But the Bander versus Balita/Beirne
dispute all started when Beirne‟s
law firm started calling Bander‟s
clients to have them withdraw from
righteous wage claims.
PinoyWatchDog.com will continue
to inform the community about the
roots of this dispute, and await Mr.
Rhony Laigo‟s unsubstantiated
denials without facts; his made up
stories and maniacal rants.
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21. 3/13/2012 Atty. James Beirne Contempt 21