For those of you who have been following the ongoing story of the Pauley “NCIS” Perrette and her repeated and relentless victimization of her ex-husband Francis Shivers, via the false restraining order, AVFM is bringing you some interesting news. As you will see, this current action is truly historic in its significance and action. All of you rapid mouse clickers out there will want to stay with this one.
There have been countless claims by thousands of people who complain of very greasy and underhanded legal tactics employed by attorneys who will do just about anything to secure false restraining orders on behalf of their clients. In this case proof’ in the form of documents in the case file have been discovered and filed with the LA County Superior Court, the California State Bar, and the LA County Grand Jury. These documents point directly to criminal complicity on the part of two of Perrette’s attorneys.
And they are in the attorney’s own handwriting.
Our cadre of AVFM researchers, investigators, and volunteers have painstakingly sifted through thousands of pages of documents, and have found evidence of criminal acts on the part of Attorneys Alexandra Lavinsky and Ronald Litz, a self-proclaimed high profile “Hollywood Celebrity” lawyer.
Court stipulation – March 10, 2008
Alexandra Levinski Declaration – November 10, 2011
One of the assertions that Mr. Shivers has made many times in this decade long saga (which have been dismissed and ignored) is the fact that attorneys representing Perrette have attempted to circumvent the notification to Shivers of petitions by Perrette for restraining orders which she has succeeded in getting issued ex-parte. This is not the only example of serious attorney misconduct. It is just one of many.
Here we bring you one specific example that was successful for Perrette, but not for long. In March of 2008 one of the attorneys representing Perrette; Alexandra Lavinsky prepared a court stipulation under the direction of Attorney Ronald Litz, Lavinsky’s employer. This stipulation was handwritten by Lavinsky and signed by both Lavinsky and Shivers. It was an agreement that any and all correspondence in this case would be mailed to Shiver’s attorney, Mr. Sanford Passman, His address is clearly stated. The stipulation was then placed into the official record.
In November of 2011, just before Perrette’s current restraining order was about to expire, her legal counsel(s) tried to pull a fast one by sneaking something in. This particular temporary order was the order that resulted in Shivers recent conviction for violating same. Using carnival-like bait and switch tactics, and attempting to get another temporary restraining order in an ex parte hearing, Attorney Lavinsky prepared a signed sworn declaration, under penalty of perjury, claiming that she attempted to notify Mr. Shivers but was unsuccessful, of yet another in a long list of restraining order petitions and hearings by Perrette. Either Perrette or someone on her legal team petitioned for another restraining order extension some time prior to the expiration of the last one which was issued on November 13, 2006.
A hearing was scheduled for November 10, 2011, the same date that appears on Ms. Lavinsky’s declaration. The content of this declaration clearly indicates that Lavinsky claimed that she was unsuccessful in reaching Mr. Shivers. She claims that her assistant attempted to reach Mr. Shivers through alleged contacts with LAPD Threat Management Unit Detective Jose Viramontes and retired Detective Martha DeFoe.
Lavinsky’s emails to Shivers the day before the actual hearing on November 9, 2011, reveal another unscrupulous legal tactic (see Lavinsky Declaration). You will notice that Lavinsky sent two emails to Shivers on the November 9, one at 9:56 am and the other at 10:04 am. The Rules of the Court state that you must notify a Respondent of an ex-parte hearing 24 hours prior to the actual hearing. That hearing was scheduled for the next day at 10 am.
Waiting until the last possible minute and just to satisfy the Rules of the Court, Lavinsky sent the first email with 4 minutes to spare and the second one was 4 minutes late, but technically she was within the rules. Given the history of Perrette’s diligent filing of petitions for restraining orders, one would think that she and her lawyers would have known weeks or months in advance when her existing restraining order was about to expire, and when she was going to ask for an extension.
Yet in this scenario, Ms. Lavinsky waited till the last possible moment, 4 minutes before the deadline. Why didn’t she try to reach him a week before, two weeks before; why didn’t she mail the notice to his attorney like she agreed that she would in writing more than three years prior?
The intent here is clear, as is the legal tomfoolery. On one hand Perrette’s lawyers have gone to astronomical lengths to try to cross all of their t’s and dot all of their i’s but they intentionally ignored and did not present the prior stipulation to the court, thereby perpetrating a fraud upon the court. That’s fraud, as in felony.
They hoped that Shivers would not check his email; therefore he would not show up at the hearing the next morning because he was unaware of the hearing, and they would get another restraining order by default. Perrette and her legal counsel would be in compliance with the Rules of the Court so far as the notification requirements for an ex-parte hearing, but were hoping that he wouldn’t show.
Shivers did check his email, but late in the evening and he did not have sufficient time to prepare any kind of proper response or defense. Surprised at this last minute attempt to get another restraining order, since he hadn’t had any contact with Perrette in years and had no violations, he had to go into the proceeding unprepared. The declaration was submitted to the court by Attorney Ronald Litz, who was in attendance as the court record clearly indicates, and unfortunately Shivers was subjected to another temporary restraining order.
The actual hearing to determine if this order should stand has been continued until March of 2014, and Perrette has been ordered by the court to appear. In his declaration, Shivers has asked the court to vacate the current temporary order but allow the hearing to stand in order to force Perrette to testify as she has been ordered to do. If Perrette doesn’t show, Shivers has asked the court to issue a bench warrant for her arrest. If one of her legal counsel attempts to give some excuse as to why she won’t show, then Shivers has asked the court to remand whichever attorney is representing her at that time into custody for obstruction of justice.
This nonsense, this silliness, this clownish manipulation of the court must be put to a stop.
Perrette has been successful up to this point, through the manipulations of her attorneys to avoid personal testimony in most of these restraining order hearings and other proceedings, obviously to avoid having to lie under oath, as she has already done countless times.
What makes her declaration worse for Attorney Lavinsky is the fact that she was careless enough to use the Internet; two emails to further perpetrate an Intrinsic Fraud Upon the Court, thereby violating Federal Wire Fraud Statutes as outlined in Title 18, United States Code, Section 1343. Phone records will reveal if she or any one of her assistants lied about calling Viramontes or DeFoe, as they have no control over those records.
A subpoena for those phone records will tell the truth about that claim, and they will have to be provided to the court, most likely by state bar investigators.
Upon the discovery of these documents, Mr. Shivers prepared and submitted another public record sworn declaration dated November 13, 2013, advising the court of an Abuse of Process and that an Intrinsic Fraud Upon the Court had been committed with the intentional criminal acts of Attorney Alexandra Lavinsky and Attorney Ronald Litz. Here is a copy of Shivers’ declaration:
2013-11-13 Filed State Bar Complaint & Declaration – Lavinsky
The declaration also calls for the reviewing judicial officer to issue a bench warrant for the arrest of Attorney Alexandra Lavinsky and Attorney Ronald Litz for the appropriate violations to include Perjury, Conspiracy, and to refer to the Office of the United States Attorney for prosecution on a violation of Federal Wire Fraud Statutes.
The declaration has also been sent to the California State Bar as an official state bar complaint, and to the LA County Grand Jury. All documents have been sent via certified mail and the tracking numbers were included in the declaration providing proof of delivery. This action should also prompt the State Bar to conduct a review of this entire case and of the several dozen other unethical and illegal acts committed by all California State Bar members who have been involved in this case.
The tables have been turned and the proof is indisputable. There is simply no way that anyone can write this one off and whoever the judge is that reviews this declaration is mandated by judicial canons, state bar professional rules of conduct and rules of the court to also notify the state bar. The law and provisions of various professional rules dictate that when any judicial officer or attorney knows of or has been made aware of serious attorney or judicial misconduct, they are mandated by law to report it. There is no wiggle room. The California State Bar website specifically states that a conviction of perjury on the part of an attorney justifies disbarment.
Let’s just hope that the state bar and the courts do the right thing and criminally charge these two lawyers, and that if convicted they lose their license to practice law in addition to spending some quality residential time in a correctional facility. As convicted felons, let’s hope that they won’t be able to get a job in anything other than the fast food industry upon their release from a state and/or federal correctional facility. Even then they will have to declare that they are convicted felons, so they won’t be allowed to work the cash register, just flip the burgers.
Here at AVFM and many of the other organizations have heard case after case of some of the under-handed, unethical and illegal things attorneys do when it comes to procuring false or unnecessary restraining orders for their clients. Rarely do we have actual proof, but in this case we have written proof, official court documents in their own handwriting that have been in the official court record for years. We just had to find them and put the pieces of the puzzle together.
It doesn’t get any better than this, and it just shows you how blatant these lawyers have become. They actually feel that they can conspire to violate this man’s rights, to pave the way for his wrongful conviction and incarceration, and can violate their oath as attorneys with impunity to satisfy the vengeful desires of a well-paying celebrity.
As many of you already can see, proof of a clearer picture of the truth is slowly coming to the surface. When an abuse of process and a fraud upon the court has been perpetrated and proven, the law and case law is explicitly clear in that the temporary order which is currently in place must be vacated.
Everything that occurred as a result of an illegal order must also be dismissed or vacated. We will see if the LA County Superior Court and the Office of the LA City Attorney does the right thing and vacates the order as well as Mr. Shiver’s criminal conviction. The City and County of Los Angeles will also have to consider some type of settlement that will have a lot of zeros in it; so will Ms. Lavinsky and Mr. Litz.
Mr. Shivers has in fact filed a Civil Complaint for Damages with both the City and County of Los Angeles, based on selective enforcement and prosecution of the law. Both of these claims are public record. Under these circumstances, where the level of proof is continuously being elevated, showing unequivocally that not only has Perrette fraudulently abused the restraining order process, but that attorneys and other public officials have also participated and facilitated her fraud.
The filing of a Civil Complaint for Damages actually forces the municipality to conduct their own inquiry in order to either pay the claim or provide justification to deny the claim. If they deny the claim, the claimant has the right to pursue legal action. If they deny the claim, the municipality will be forced into a scenario where they will have no option other than to pursue criminal charges against Pauley Perrette, these two lawyers and others, in order to attempt to justify their denial.
Municipalities often handle these types of claims with immediate, scripted denial of responsibility. ‘Gee whiz, we had no idea we have been taken for a ride by Pauley Perrette and her cohorts. As soon as it was brought to our attention we immediately launched a thorough investigation and sought criminal charges against Pauley Perrette, some of her lawyers and a handful of dishonest corrupt public officials. See, we’re not liable, we didn’t know!’
This kind of statement is crap. Municipalities use this kind of language in order to reduce their exposure to civil liability. They make claims of how surprised they are and how they have conducted all kinds of reviews of policy and procedure to make sure “this kind of thing never happens again.”
Right; they’ve known about this all along but won’t do anything until they are backed into a corner, someone is getting ready to lose their job, or someone is in jeopardy of going to jail. Sadly in the Los Angeles area there are those in public service who just won’t do their job correctly until they are standing in front of the Intake and Reception area of the LA County Jail.
In this case, unequivocal proof of criminal culpability has been provided; therefore someone should go to jail. It doesn’t look like “Abbey Scuito’s” magical television forensics will help out on this one.
Maybe she and Alexandra can share a cell.
Perhaps now Perrette and some of her cohorts will understand how Mr. Shivers felt when they set him up to go to jail, how he felt walking into that jail reception area, trying to sleep on a concrete bench, and having to watch over his shoulder to keep from getting shanked by an obsessive Pauley Perrette fan.
The belief system held by some of the high profile attorneys in the LA/Hollywood area has been demonstrated here. Some believe that they can act with impunity and lawless abandon, or conduct certain practices just below the radar, and never be questioned as to their unethical or illegal practices. If it were not for the discovery of these documents and the vast history of similar acts in this case, or the public revelation these crimes, this incident would most likely be ignored, excused, or covered up.
This most recent declaration by Mr. Shivers proving an abuse of process, an intrinsic fraud upon the court, and state bar complaint are by no means the last. There will be more, and with irrefutable and indisputable proof of criminal acts committed by attorneys, prosecutors, cops or judges in this case, we will demand that justice be done, and that these crimes are prosecuted.
This lunacy of this restraining order system must be changed. Everything that everybody has said is wrong with the restraining order system is right here in this case. Lying, manipulating, and conniving cops, prosecutors, lawyers and judges — all wrapped into one example. It is multiplied ten times over when you throw in the Hollywood component and the eagerness of some of our less scrupulous public officials to make a name for themselves, or set themselves up in retirement for the benefit of, and riding on the coattails of, a celebrity.
‘So what if we violated the rights of Mr. Shivers, so what that we manufactured violations and elevated this case into night stalker status, we got on the A-List.’
I would strongly suggest that those of you out there who have crossed paths with these two lawyers, or who have had similar experiences, closely inspect your own cases. If it applies, file the appropriate abuse of process and fraud upon the court declarations with the court, and a complaint with the California State Bar. This can apply to anyone who may have violated the law in your case; it doesn’t have to be restricted to attorneys in order to file a declaration.
If these two were so blatantly careless in this case, chances are they have been just as careless in other cases as well. The State Bar, the Court, and the Grand Jury have all been put on notice that it may now be necessary to inspect every single case in which Ms. Lavinsky and Mr. Litz have ever taken part. We have just created work for the legal malpractice attorneys.
It is hoped that by exposing the truth in this all-too-common scenario of obtaining unjustified and false restraining orders with the intent of somehow escalating cases into criminal law violations, it will encourage others to re-examine their own situations. Download a copy of Mr. Shiver’s declaration, use it as an example and file your own declarations.
Remember that everyone has the right to free speech and to constitutional protections and due process guarantees. In the meantime, as soon as we can get copies of booking photos, we’ll be sure to post them here. Stay tuned, there’s more to come.
