Attorneys Wage Wicked War of Words as Prelude to Threatened Litigation

San Diego Law.

Who said the practice of law has to be a stodgy affair just because it can involve millions of dollars and enough aggravation to make your hair fall out in clumps?

Take the recent exchange of letters involving two of San Diego’s top attorneys: Brian Monaghan and Roy Morrow Bell.

Monaghan represents a helmsman and fund-raiser with a gripe against America’s Cup competitor William Koch, the Florida multimillionaire who bankrolls the America-3 syndicate. Bell represents Koch.

Monaghan to Koch:

“I am Brian Dennis Sean Monaghan. I and my firm have been retained to bring you to justice, or, in the alternative, to strip you of a few million bucks to partially compensate my clients. . . .

“Can I deliver? Ask around. There is a less expensive and less painful way: settlement. If you have any interest in genuinely pursuing that alternative please have your counsel contact me.

“If a settlement is finalized (quickly), I will refrain from alerting the media that a complaint has been filed.�

Bell to Monaghan:

“From my life’s experiences and professional relationship with you, I am convinced to a moral certainty that someone off-balance has stolen your letterhead and is sending letters out, supposedly from you.

“I just thought I would let you know about that, so that you could do something about it.�

Bell says his client was “outraged at the arrogance� of Monaghan’s letter. A joke gone badly awry, he calls it.

Monaghan, who has a Lady Justice statue outside his Point Loma home, says his in-your-face letter was meant to catch Koch’s attention.

“People with that kind of money, especially if they got it from Daddy, have a tendency to think money can intimidate people,� Monaghan said.

“I felt something unusual, something more coarse was needed. I talked to him in the patois of the street, which I guess he didn’t understand.�

See, and you thought litigation was no fun at all.

Well-Fed Beauty

Your item here.

* Who says beauty pageants are meat markets?

Ramona Meats is sponsoring a contestant in the upcoming Miss American Coed Pageant. One of the judging categories is “Best Thank You Note to Sponsor.�

* The employee most likely to get burned by the $100,000 sex scandal: Personnel Director Rich Snapper.

The Civil Service Commission, for whom Snapper works, will be asked to look at Snapper’s role in approving the secret settlement.

Specifically: Shouldn’t Snapper have told the City Council that a complaint had been filed against the council-appointed planning director? Since he didn’t, should he be punished?

* Some council members returned their copies of attorney Josiah Neeper’s 30-page report so they couldn’t be accused of leaking.

* Some bureaucrats are referring to him as The Grim Neeper.

* Neeper’s fee will come from his annual $15,000 retainer to provide labor-management advice to city officials.

* If utility watchdog Michael Shames tries to parlay his fame as a merger-killer into a challenge to Councilman Bruce Henderson, the incumbent is ready.

Henderson backers are stressing his impeccable anti-merger credentials: He warned early that the deal could violate the city franchise agreement and always voted to hire more legal muscle to fight it.

* Anti-Catholic comic books (the Vatican loved Hitler, etc.) are being put on car windshields in Oceanside.

Health Benefits

What’s in a name?

The Tijuana health department struggles to provide exams for venereal disease and AIDS for the city’s estimated 3,000 prostitutes.

That annoys higher-ups in the Mexican bureaucracy, who say it smacks of helping an illegal profession flourish. But health workers have found a way to avoid hassles.

On official forms, they now simply list the prostitutes as “night workers.�