Earl L. Segal
Newmark Knight Frank
Mr. Segal:
I strongly urge you to speak to the Washington Field Office of the Federal Bureau of Investigation concerning the following matters. If you have any information that could help the Bureau investigate the criminal conduct of the law firm of Akin, Gump, Strauss, Hauer & Feld, see Freedman v. D.C. Department of Human Rights, D.C.C.A. no. 96-CV-961 (Sept. 1, 1998), you have a legal duty and an ethical duty as a lawyer to disclose that information to federal law enforcement. You practiced law at Akin Gump during my tenure at the firm (1988 to 1991) and for some years thereafter. Your failure to disclose evidence of crimes could jeopardize your license to practice law.
The D.C. Office of Corporation Counsel (acting through Charles F.C. Ruff, Esq., Jo Anne Robinson, Esq., Charles L. Reischel, Esq., William J. Earl, Esq. and M. Justin Draycott, Esq.) took the position before the D.C. Superior Court in 1996 and again before the D.C. Court of Appeals in 1997 that my belief that Akin Gump's managers (a class of persons that included Vernon E. Jordan, Jr., Esq., Robert S. Strauss, Esq., Malcolm Lassman, Esq., Laurence J. Hoffman, Esq., Joel Jankowsky, Esq. and Richard L. Wyatt, Jr., Esq.) engaged in, or approved the commission of, criminal acts, specifically, approving the break-in of my residence in January 1990 and conspiring to solicit confidential mental health information from my treating psychiatrists in violation of the D.C. Mental Health Information Act of 1978 (from 1989 through 1991) -- acts that in their entirety might constitute the crime of racketeering under federal law -- was genuine. Brief of Appellee District of Columbia, Freedman v. D.C. Dept. Human Rights, D.C.C.A. no. 96-CV-961 (Sept. 1, 1998). Neither Strauss, Jordan, Wyatt, Jankowsky, Race, Lassman, managing partner Hoffman nor any Akin Gump manager disputed the D.C. Corporation Counsel's position or questioned its legal or factual relevance.
The D.C. Court of Appeals determined that a Clinical Professor of Psychiatry (Gertrude R. Ticho, M.D., now deceased) at GW offered a professional psychiatric opinion about me to Malcolm Lassman, Esq. and Dennis M. Race, Esq. in late October 1991. The U.S. Social Security Administration relied in 1993 on Mr. Race's sworn declaration about that psychiatric opinion to grant a fraudulent claim of disability insurance. Dr. Ticho's act of providing a professional psychiatric opinion about an (unnamed) individual without benefit of personal examination was a violation of the American Psychiatric Association's Code of Professional Ethics. See Goldwater v. Ginzburg, 396 U.S. 1049 (1970) (the APA's so-called Goldwater Rule prohibits a psychiatrist from offering a professional psychiatric opinion without benefit of personal examination). Information obtained by Akin Gump via Dr. Ticho's violation of the Goldwater Rule was used by Akin Gump's attorney managers to defraud the D.C. Department of Human Rights (1992 and 1993), the D.C. Superior Court (1996), the D.C. Court of Appeals (1997), the D.C. Corporation Counsel (1996 and 1997), and the U.S. Social Security Administration (1993).
During my employment at Akin Gump you were the partner in charge of the firm's Legal Assistant Program and reported to management committee member Malcolm Lassman about legal assistant issues. A confidential memo dated October 23, 1991 memorializes my meeting with you in your office to lodge a harassment complaint against my supervisor and others.
--The tone and content of the memo is not entirely consistent with Akin Gump's sworn declaration that I appeared to Dennis Race to suffer from mental illness of a severity that rendered me not fit for employment.
--The tone and content of the memo is not entirely consistent with the action of my supervisor, Chris Robertson, in advising her employees on about October 29, 1991 that she feared I might be homicidal and in taking protective measures against a feared homicidal assault.
--The memo records the fact that I lodged a harassment complaint against my supervisor. The firm's sworn declaration omits the fact that I did so.
--The memo records the fact that I requested a job promotion and that you made inquiries about a job promotion. The firm's sworn declaration omits the fact that I requested a job promotion or that either you or Dennis Race made inquiries about a promotion. At the termination meeting on October 29, 1991 Dennis Race advised me that he had inquired into a promotion but that the legal assistant administrative staff (J.D. Neary and Maggie Sinnott) said they were afraid of me, found me difficult to work with, and could not work with me. The reported statements of Neary and Sinnott to Dennis Race support the firm's conclusion that I was not fit for employment, yet, unacccountably, this probative evidence of my lack of employability was omitted by the firm in it's sworn declaration.
Gary Freedman
Washington, DC
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3 comments:
I have been diagnosed with psychotic mental illness of longstanding duration. My suspicions may be symptoms of severe mental illness.
For the firm to allege that Neary and Sinnott found me difficult to work with would raise questions about precisely what motivated Dennis Race to speak with Neary and Sinnott. In fact, the reason Dennis Race spoke to Neary and Sinnott was to inquire into a job promotion: an inconvenient fact for an employer alleging that I appeared to be mentally unfit for employment.
M E M O R A N D U M
CONFIDENTIAL
TO: File
FROM: Earl L. Segal
RE: Legal Assistant Program
DATE: October 23, 1991
__________
Today at approximately 3:45 Gary Freedman, a legal assistant, passed me in the hall and asked if we could speak. We set a time of 4:00 to meet. I met him in my office at 4:00 and he was visibly agitated. Gary informed me that he recently was moved to the Terrace Level and was having some problems. He told me he believes he has been a victim of both sexual and religious harassment. He first described to me an incident with a women (whose name I did not inquire, and who name he did not disclose), who was conferring with him over his work. He described to me that while he was sitting at his desk, for a period of approximately fifteen (15) minutes she was leaning over his desk while "gyrating her hips" against the edge of his desk, and that he believed that she may have been masturbating in front of him.
With respect to religious discrmination, he related an incident where he overheard a conversation of someone in an adjoining office refer to her July telephone bill, as to be what he perceived to be her "Jew-lie" bill. Additionaly, he related to me an incident where his supervisor [Chris Robertson] called him in to discuss some work and suggested that he sit at a particular desk. When he sat at the desk he saw an empty baby food jar in the trash can. I told him that I didn't see the significance of that and asked if he would help me understand the offensive aspect of it, and he told me that at a midwestern university that he named (I'm not sure if it was Wisconsin or some other university), that Jews had been referred to as "babies," and he felt that this was referring to him as a "baby." He felt he had been subjected "like Judge Thomas" to discrimination that was stereotypical.
He stated that the actions have made it unpleasant for him to work in his existing environment. I asked him what he would like done, and he expresed a desire to move his office from the Terrace Level. Additionally, when we were leaving my office and I was walking him down the hall, he also expressed a desire to move from the litigation support group back to the legal assistant program.
Immediately following my conversation with Gary, I spoke with Malcolm, Maggie and J.D. about the matter and subsequently dictated this memorandum.
ELS/ssw
cc: Dennis M. Race, P.C. [typewritten in a different type face]
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