LOS ANGELES : Lawyer Cleared on Some Charges of Overbilling
A jury has acquitted a court-appointed lawyer, who was accused of overbilling the county on death penalty cases, on two criminal counts and deadlocked on three.
The jury found Ray Newman, 49, not guilty of one count each of grand theft and perjury. But after deliberating another day, the panel told Superior Court Judge Charles Horan on Thursday that it could not reach agreement on three similar counts.
Newman is scheduled to be back in court Nov. 4, when he will learn whether he will be retried on the unresolved counts. He was indicted in 1991 after published reports showed that he earned nearly $1 million in 1988 and 1989 defending indigents on Death Row. He worked on more death penalty cases than anyone in the state, at times submitting bills for 15-hour days even when he was flying around the country building a career as a sports agent.
The system under which he was paid has since been replaced by a cost-containment, flat-fee program.
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