Under Watch: Att’y Stephen Yagman and NFL pro Michael Vick
Civil rights attorney Stephen G. Yagman, 62, convicted of 19 felony counts of tax evasion, bankruptcy fraud and money laundering. Yagman, a pioneer in police brutality cases, brought hundreds of suits against law enforcement agencies and broke legal ground by holding Los Angeles City Council members personally liable for damages stemming from the actions of bad cops, who readers will note are usually alcoholics. (Unfortunately, he didn’t focus his energy on making it easier to fire such civil servants.) However, the justice system frequently pits addict v. addict. Police accused him of making false accusations against officers, supporting their contention by pointing out he won very few cases. Yagman was twice suspended by the California State Bar for charging clients “unconscionable” fees. In a video interview on the Full Disclosure Network (TM), available free on demand at http://www.fulldisclosure.net/flash/yagman.php, he uses repeated profanities and speaks disparagingly of other civil rights attorneys; profane language and belittling remarks of others are two of the more subtle and relatively benign clues to addiction detailed in How to Spot Hidden Alcoholics. Prosecutors alleged he had transferred the deed on his house to his girlfriend and deposited all of his income into her account, while filing for bankruptcy in New York to make it more difficult for trustees to find his assets in California. In classic “f— you” fashion, he spent $2,000 on shoes and clothing on Madison Avenue and went out to a $260 dinner hours after filing for bankruptcy.
Atlanta Falcon’s star quarterback Michael Vick, indicted for allegedly participating in a dog fighting ring in which pit bulls were obtained, trained and abused for the purpose of fighting. Prosecutors allege losing dogs were sometimes drowned, hanged, shot or electrocuted. Vick is linked to the ring because he owns the property at which the dogs were sometimes housed. While there is otherwise no public information on Vick to suggest alcoholism, animal cruelty is almost always rooted in the disease. Of the 65 dog fighting arrests he’s made in the last five years, Sgt. David Hunt of the Franklin County (Ohio) Sheriff’s Office says, “There’s only been one where we didn’t find drugs.” According to a warden supervisor for the Vermont Fish and Wildlife Department, “alcohol and drug use is common in nighttime road hunting incidents” of deer in which hunters go after the vulnerable animals with a car instead of a gun. It’s an easy way for the addict to inflate his ego, since the animal can’t fight back, except of course Joe Petcka’s girlfriend’s cat. One alternative possibility is that Vick is an extreme codependent to the property’s occupants, who were also arrested. The investigation stemmed from a drug-related arrest by local police of a Vick family member who lives on the property.