Warrant is issued for the arrest of disbarred fen-phen lawyer after he fails to show up at hearing
A Kentucky judge has issued a warrant for the arrest of Stanley Chesley after the disbarred plaintiffs lawyer failed to show up for a hearing on his failure to pay his share of a $42 million judgment to be paid to former diet-drug clients.
Judge James Schrand II of Burlington, Kentucky, issued the warrant last Thursday, report the Am Law Daily, the Louisville Courier-Journal, the Associated Press and Above the Law. Chesley’s bond is set at nearly $650,000.
Schrand ruled last year that Chesley is responsible for the unpaid portion of a $42 million judgment for excessive fees in litigation over the fen-phen diet drug. A lawyer for the plaintiffs, Angela Ford, has said Chesley owes about $25 million.
Chesley has sued Ford and five former fen-phen clients in a bid to try to stop the judgment.
Chesley was disbarred in 2013 in Kentucky for taking an “unreasonable” $20 million fee to help negotiate a $200 million settlement on behalf of the fen-phen plaintiffs. A contingency fee agreement had entitled Chesley to no more than $14 million.
