Former Milberg Weiss plaintiffs' lawyer Bill Lerach, out of jail and now serving probation, has filed a request to take a 44-day vacation to 18 cities in Europe this summer accompanied by as many as 18 family members and friends.
Justice Department officials are fighting the request from Lerach, who pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy for his involvement in a plaintiff kickback scheme, according to Politico.
In court papers filed in Los Angeles on Monday, prosecutors state that Lerach has made a series of public statements seeking to minimize the seriousness of his guilty plea and seems to be backing away from offers he made during the sentencing process in 2008 to perform community service by speaking to lawyers about the need to avoid the kinds of legal and ethics breaches he committed.
"It is premature for defendant to obtain the Court's approval of a lengthy European vacation starting a few months after his supervised release term begins while his fulfillment of a key component of his sentence -- performing 1000 hours of community service -- remains essentially unresolved," states the court document from the U.S. attorney's office in Los Angeles.
Josh Gerstein of Politico writes that prosecutors seem particularly galled by a recent interview Lerach gave to the California Lawyer. "I'm not ashamed of myself in any way," Lerach said in the interview. He said there was "no question this was a politically motivated prosecution," but also added, "You can be targeted and be guilty. They're not mutually inconsistent."