Wednesday, June 4, 2014

Joe Tacopina: Allegations

Joe Tacopina was the attorney who showed up in the Baby Lisa case, met with FBI agents, and made the case against Baby Lisa's mother, Deborah Bradley, disappear.

His deception was indicated in Statement Analysis.

Here is an article from the NY Daily News.  Note his denial referenced is not quoted.


Ex-NYPD Commissioner Bernie Kerik claims A-Rod attorney Joseph Tacopina ran a racket law firm, had affairs with TV stars and abused drugs

NYC PAPERS OUT. Social media use restricted to low res file max 184 x 128 pixels and 72 dpiSUSAN WATTS/NEW YORK DAILY NEWSBernard Kerik claims former attorney Joe Tacopina testified against him in a federal investigation, leading to Kerik, former NYPD commissioner, serving three years in prison.
It was a full-service firm: extortion, drug abuse, betrayal, fraud, extramarital affairs — even racketeering.
Celebrity attorney Joseph Tacopina did it all, according to a bombshell complaint filed in Manhattan Federal Court Court on Tuesday night by his one-time close friend and client, former NYPD Commissioner Bernard Kerik.
The RICO complaint, amended from Kerik’s January lawsuit charging Tacopina with fraud and malpractice, seeks a judge’s order to dissolve Tacopina’s law firm and asks for treble damages and a jury trial.
The complaint says Tacopina, who recently represented Yankees slugger Alex Rodriguez in an unsuccessful bid to escape a steroid ban, engaged in “a pattern of racketeering activity” beginning in 2006 and continuing through the present.
The suit says Tacopina kept fraudulent business records that were “structured in a manner that would allow him to engage in expensive trysts, while concealing the costs from his wife."
While the “primary purpose of the Tacopina firm was to generate money,” the suit alleges, “the members, partners and associates at times used the resources of the firm to settle personal grievances, manipulate the media and present a false public image to protect the reputation of the enterprise.”
“It's outrageous,” said Tacopina's attorney, Judd Burstein, who called the claims “tremendously shocking” and vowed to fight the claims in court motions. “It's false in respect to his personal life. ... It's a ridiculous legal theory, more ridiculous than his previous theories.”
The suit, filed by Kerik’s attorney Tim Parlatore, also claims that Tacopina became a prosecution witness against Kerik in the former top cop’s federal criminal case in 2007, allegedly costing Kerik a 16-count indictment and three years in federal prison.
“Ultimately, defendant Tacopina’s testimony, whether true or not, provided federal prosecutors with the vital elements that they needed to be able to proceed against Mr. Kerik, as the prosecution would have been time-barred by the statute of limitations,” the suit says. “Thus, but for defendant Tacopina's cooperation, Mr. Kerik would not have faced a federal conviction.”
NYC PAPERS OUT. Social media use restricted to low res file max 184 x 128 pixels and 72 dpiHOWARD SIMMONS/NEW YORK DAILY NEWSEnlarge
New York Yankees third baseman Alex Rodriguez was represented by Joseph Tacopina when he fought ban for using performance-enhancing drugs.ROBERT SABO/NEW YORK DAILY NEWSEnlarge
Attorney Joseph Tacopina (left) represented New York Yankees third baseman Alex Rodriguez in the baseball star's battle to avoid punishment for using performance-enhancing drugs.
Kerik’s complaint also accuses Burstein of going to the same federal prosecutors Tacopina cooperated with originally and asking them to arrest Kerik on “phony perjury charges.”
Kerik says the complaint is not a collateral attack on his convictions and adds that nothing in the complaint should be “misconstrued as a recantation of this or any other plea allocution entered.” It says Tacopina met with prosecutors in at least five proffer sessions and secretly gave them information about Kerik “solely in order to avoid prosecution for his own misconduct.” Tacopina had previously represented Kerik in a related case. (Through his attorney Lanny Davis, Tacopina denied last year that he’d signed such proffer agreements in the Kerik case.)
NEW YORK DAILY NEWS
Kerik claims in the lawsuit that Tacopina “was abusing prescription pain medications, which he obtained from various physicians.”
The suit says Tacopina engaged in “countless” extramarital affairs, including with TV personalities and even the wife of a client. Kerik says these affairs were part of “a public relations campaign.” (Individual names are withheld in the complaint.) The affairs are relevant, too, the suit says, because Tacopina lied to prosecutors “regarding his numerous extramarital affairs. While he admitted to several (including Individual A), he omitted countless others. This includes, but is not limited to other TV personalities and at least one former client.”
“Individual A was married to a man who was an acquaintance of Tacopina’s,” the suit says. “The two began their illicit liaisons at the Heldrich hotel in New Brunswick, N.J.”
In 2002, the suit says, a man named Joseph, whom Tacopina represented in a criminal case, hired a private investigator to track his wife to a New York City hotel. The suit says Tacopina kept fraudulent business records that were “structured in a manner that would allow him to engage in expensive trysts, while concealing the costs from his wife.”
The Heldrich hotel in New Brunswick, N.J. was the site of extramarital affairs, according to a suit filed Tuesday.WIKIPEDIA COMMONSThe Heldrich hotel in New Brunswick, N.J. was the site of extramarital affairs, according to a suit filed Tuesday.
Kerik filed a complaint with the New York bar against Tacopina in December, claiming the lawyer voluntarily provided the feds information against the interest of his client while concealing that he himself had become a subject or target of a federal criminal investigation.
Last week, Kerik released a recording of a phone call he said Tacopina made to him in 2007 after Tacopina’s name had appeared on a government witness list in the case that destroyed Kerik’s reputation as a law enforcement official and caused him to suffer “immense damages.” Both men had been explicitly forbidden from contacting each other at the time.
Before Kerik released his recorded phone call, Tacopina had denied to the Daily News that it had occurred. The transcript of the call — allegedly placed on Dec. 9, 2007 — appears to show Tacopina disregarding instructions from Kerik’s attorney at the time, Ken Breen, that Tacopina not call Kerik.
“Ken called and said you can’t call me, because uh, you know, I’m on this f---ing witness list,” Tacopina says in a panic. Tacopina then promises Kerik he will collect a finder’s fee the men expected to share in a business venture with Raffaello Follieri, an Italian businessman who was the fiancé of actress Anne Hathaway.
Bernard Kerik (left) was once a close friend and client of celebrity attorney Joseph Tacopina (right).LOUIS LANZANO/APBernard Kerik (left) was once a close friend and client of celebrity attorney Joseph Tacopina (right).
The suit claims that Tacopina was poised to collect a $2.5 million finder’s fee while having represented the sum to Kerik as $1.5 million.
The suit also lists instances of Tacopina allegedly using the threat of lawsuits to intimidate and silence reporters in 2008, 2010 and 2014. Tacopina sued The News, along with Kerik, about Kerik’s initial complaint against Tacopina, alleging that The News improperly colluded with Kerik. The News denied all of Tacopina’s allegations at the time, and Tacopina withdrew the suit against The News and its reporters (but not Kerik) after concluding that there had been no collusion with Kerik and that The News’ reporting was therefore privileged. Kerik’s suit calls the claim against The News a “frivolous and retaliatory” act.
Tacopina’s defamation suit, Kerik claims, “sought to send a message to all other reporters that if they printed any negative material about Tacopina, or made any attempts to shed the light of truth on his falsely inflated reputation, that they would face similar economic harm.”
“Tacopina knew better than anyone the extent of his cooperation with federal prosecutors,” Kerik claims

12 comments:

elf said...

Isn't that a violation of attorney/client privilege?

Boggled said...

Gotta love karma.

rob said...

Like to see how that peacock is strutting now.

C5H11ONO said...

“It's false in respect to his personal life. ... It's a ridiculous legal theory, more ridiculous than his previous theories.”

--Does this mean there are truths, but in respect to his personal life it's false. This is a big slip here.

Skeptical said...

Mr. Kerik might have been wise to remember the old adages. "When you lie down with dogs, you get up with fleas."

As for Tacopina, one can only hope that Karma is a bitch.

Skeptical said...

Since Mr. Tacopina is accused of having affairs with a cable news producer and a cable news personality, how much credence can be given to the reporting on the baby Lisa disappearance? Let's see if the cable channels touch this one?

Anonymous said...

Is this the JT who became the big-time lawyer for Baby Lisa's mother? And did all the answering for her on Dr. Phil's show?

Anonymous said...

Anon 5:22 yes

dadgum said...

ugh..

Trigger said...

It is not surprising that Joe Tacopina is alleged to be immoral and unethical.

Joe's credibility has been called into question by his peers. He is a troubled man who has been exposed for the fraud he is.

sidewalk super said...

ah, we finally see that the sleeze ball lawyer is , indeed, a sleeze.

sidewalk super said...

ah, so we finally see that the sleeze-ball lawyer is exactly what he looks and sounds like.
Sleeze.
Sleazy
Sleaziest