Fen-Phen Lawyer Notes Destroyed
The three lawyers accused of plundering Kentucky's $200 million fen-phen settlement "tore up or burned" notes showing how much they paid themselves and their clients, according to one of the lawyers. Depositions obtained
by The Courier-Journal include Lexington attorney Melbourne Mills Jr.'s description of a secret meeting that he said he and lawyers William Gallion and Shirley Cunningham Jr., also of Lexington, held at Gallion's house in 2001 to divvy up an extra $10 million beyond what they'd already paid themselves from the settlement. "We all agreed to keep it a secret," Mills said. "I think we either tore up or burned the pages it was written on." Angela Ford, the accused lawyers' former clients' attorney, alleges that Mill's description is a "dramatic indication of a cover-up." She has asked that those lawyers and another attorney, Stan Chesley of Cincinnati, who helped negotiate the settlement, be forced to surrender $62.6 million in funds they allegedly misappropriated -- as well as $59.5 million they paid themselves in fees. "Given the damage that these attorneys have done to the profession, allowing them to keep any portion of their fees would be truly unconscionable," she said in a motion to be heard Feb. 12 in Boone Circuit Court.
