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Law Firms

McElroy Deutsch settles suit claiming over $3M embezzlement by former executives

By Debra Cassens Weiss

April 15, 2025, 9:32 am CDT

McElroy, Deutsch, Mulvaney & Carpenter has reached a settlement in a lawsuit accusing its former chief financial officer and his wife of stealing more than $3 million from the law firm.

McElroy Deutsch notified the court in Union County, New Jersey, that the case had settled in an April 11 letter, Law360 reports. A stipulation of dismissal said the suit and all counterclaims would be dismissed.

The settlement follows former CFO John Dunlea’s May 2024 guilty plea to embezzling more than $1.5 million from the firm over a six-year period and to failing to pay $22,000 in state income taxes. Dunlea was sentenced to five years in prison in July 2024 and ordered to pay more than $1.5 million in restitution to McElroy Deutsch.

The firm’s suit had claimed that Dunlea paid himself unauthorized bonuses of at least $1.6 million, and that he and his wife, Nicole Alexander, treated themselves to lavish vacations in “business-card abuse” totaling more than $1.6 million.

Alexander was the firm’s former director of business and professional development. She had filed a countersuit alleging that McElroy Deutsch retaliated against her for her complaints about alleged legal violations and made unwarranted assumptions by wrongly accusing her of being aware of her husband’s alleged embezzlement.

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A government ethics watchdog group implored a federal judge to order the so-called Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) to produce records responsive to a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request by next week, arguing that information on the “black box agency” and its operations are vital for Congress and the general public before the current continuing resolution expires next week.

Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) filed the lawsuit against DOGE last month, accusing the pseudo-agency of unlawfully refusing to comply with its FOIA requests for records associated with the government group’s actions and ignoring repeated demands for DOGE to preserve its records under the Federal Records Act.

CREW requested expedited records and documents related to communications between Office of Management and Budget (OMB) staffers and individuals who were affiliated with DOGE prior to Trump’s inauguration, changes to the operations of the U.S. Digital Service, organizational charts and financial disclosures, and DOGE’s communications with federal agencies, which DOGE and the other plaintiffs have so far failed to turn over.

The Trump administration responded to the litigation by claiming that DOGE was not subject to FOIA laws due to the president’s designation of the entity as a “free-standing component of the Executive Office of the President.”

FOIA allows the public to obtain non-exempt information from executive branch agencies and departments that do not function “solely to advise and assist the President.”

Appearing before U.S. District Judge Christopher R. Cooper on Friday, attorneys representing CREW asserted that it would suffer irreparable harm if the document request was not fulfilled by next week. The organization further asserted that based on news reports, the government’s own public statements, and DOGE’s own publications, it clearly wielded more than advisory authority.

CREW’s attorney argued that members of Congress lacked sufficient information on DOGE, its organizational structure, funding, and the agency’s authority before they could vote on funding the government on March 14.

“The nature of the influence DOGE has been wielding is unlike anything we’ve seen before,” CREW’s attorney told the court. “This newly formed, unscrutinized, black box agency is directing other agencies what to do and what not to do. They’re instructing agencies to the tune of hundreds of billions of dollars in cancelled contracts and the firing of thousands of federal workers.”

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Environmental Law

In ‘monumental moment,’ Montana Supreme Court rules for youths claiming right to clean environment

By Debra Cassens Weiss

December 19, 2024, 9:01 am CST

The Montana Supreme Court on Wednesday struck down a state law banning consideration of greenhouse gas emissions in fossil-fuel-permitting decisions, citing a state constitutional provision that guarantees a “clean and healthful environment.”

The Montana Supreme Court sided with 16 youths who alleged environmental harm. The decision is the first of its kind by a state supreme court, according to a press release by Our Children’s Trust, a nonprofit public interest law firm, and the Western Environmental Law Center, which represented the plaintiffs.

The lead counsel for the plaintiffs, Nate Bellinger, called the opinion “a monumental moment for Montana, our youth and the future of our planet” in the press release.

The state constitutional right to a “clean and healthful environment” includes a stable climate system, the Montana Supreme Court said in the majority opinion by Chief Justice Mike McGrath. The alleged violation of that right gave the youth plaintiffs standing to sue, the state supreme court said in the Dec. 18 opinion.

Law360, the Hill and the Daily Montanan are among the publications with coverage.

The state had argued that delegates at the 1972 state constitutional convention didn’t intend to address climate change because it wasn’t discussed. Montana also argued that state efforts to address climate change wouldn’t have an impact without global action.

But the majority said constitutional delegates didn’t have to contemplate every constitutional harm that would be protected. Nor would they “grant the state a free pass to pollute the Montana environment just because the rest of the world insisted on doing so,” McGrath wrote.

A concurring judge agreed on the constitutional issue.

But the concurrence said solutions to global warming are in federal and international public policy choices, “rather than in a flashy headline-grabbing rights-based legal case in Montana.”

A dissenting judge argued that the plaintiffs did not have standing.

Chase Scheuer, the press secretary for the Montana Department of Justice, said the ruling was “disappointing but not surprising,” according to coverage by the Hill.

“The majority of the state supreme court justices yet again ruled in favor of their ideologically aligned allies and ignored the fact that Montana has no power to impact the climate,” Scheuer said.

The case is Held v. Montana.

See also:

Montana’s disregard of climate change violates right to clean environment, judge rules

Nation’s first youth climate lawsuits to go to trial

In a case with several layers of alleged deception, Tennessee authorities say a man called 911 claiming to be a hiker who fell off a cliff while running from a bear. But Monroe County investigators said that while they did find a dead body, this was not the real caller.

The caller was actually Nicholas Wayne Hamlett, 45, they said. He is now wanted for first-degree murder out of Monroe County.

The suspect, who is known for allegedly using various aliases, also has a criminal history. He was sentenced in 2012 to 20 years in prison after being charged with holding a man at gunpoint, trying to hit him with a baseball bat, and attempting to bury him alive, according to AL.com. In that case, he used the alias Joshua Jones at one point.

Now he’s on the lam, authorities say.

More Law&Crime coverage: Florida woman paid ex-boyfriend $1,000 to help murder her grandparents, cops say

Authorities say that on Oct. 18, at approximately 11:34 a.m., Monroe County’s E-911 got a call transferred from their Polk County counterparts regarding a “distressed hiker” who claimed to be a man by the name of Brandon Andrade.

“He advised the dispatcher that he had fallen off a cliff while running from a bear,” they wrote. “The distressed caller claimed that he was injured and partially in the water.”

The call pinged in the area of Charles Hall Bridge on the Cherahola Skyway in Tellico Plains. First responders showed up, searched the area, and indeed found a dead man with the identification of Brandon Kristopher Andrade on his body.

But when law enforcement dug deeper, they learned he was not Andrade, and that in fact the ID had been stolen and used multiple times elsewhere.

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Intellectual Property Law

Kim Kardashian sued for claiming ‘low-grade’ knockoff furniture was made by artist Donald Judd

By Debra Cassens Weiss

March 28, 2024, 11:20 am CDT

Reality TV star Kim Kardashian claimed on video that she had purchased “Donald Judd tables” that were in fact “cheap knockoffs,” leading consumers to think that the source of the furniture was the nonprofit foundation dedicated to the artist’s legacy, according to a lawsuit filed this week.

The Judd Foundation sued Kardashian and Clements Design, which allegedly made the knockoff furniture that appeared in a 2022 Kardashian video made at the offices of Kardashian’s skin care company.

“If you guys are furniture people—because I’ve really gotten into furniture lately—these Donald Judd tables are really amazing and totally blend in with the seats,” Kardashian said in the video posted to YouTube.

Reuters, the New York Times, TMZ and USA Today have coverage of the March 27 lawsuit, filed in the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California.

The suit accuses Kardashian of false endorsement and Clements Design of trademark and copyright infringement, false advertising and unfair competition.

“These poor-quality imitations masquerading as authentic Donald Judd tables and chairs harm the Donald Judd brand, as consumers will see the cheap knockoffs, be told they are authentic Donald Judd furniture, and erroneously associate those low-grade pieces with the Donald Judd brand,” the suit says.

Judd died in 1994.

Clements Design said in a statement published by the New York Times and TMZ its furniture had “obvious key differences” from Donald Judd designs, and the Judd Foundation had been unwilling to settle on reasonable terms.

A lawyer for Clements Design, John Ulin, told the foundation that the wood type and proportions of its table were different than the Donald Judd tables, according to the New York Times.

“They are different tables with different designs,” Ulin said.