Attorney airs ad to rebut charges

Las Vegas attorney Noel Gage has come out swinging in his fight with the federal government, airing a defiant television commercial since his indictment earlier this year and recently adding one of the country's top legal minds to his defense team.

Harvard University law professor Alan Dershowitz has signed on to represent Gage, who faces fraud and other charges in connection with what prosecutors have described as a multimillion-dollar scheme to inflate settlements and judgments in personal injury cases.

The defendant is tight-lipped about what role Dershowitz will play in his criminal case. He's also keeping mum about what prompted the renowned author and civil libertarian, who accepts only a handful of cases each year, to take up his cause.

"I think it's fair to say that the government's prosecution of this case is an attempt to create a crime where none has ever existed," Gage said without elaborating.

A federal grand jury has indicted two people in the fraud case: Gage and Howard Awand. The indictment against Awand claims he "purported to be" a medical consultant. Prosecutors claim the two men conspired with unidentified doctors in Las Vegas for two years to pad their own pockets.

During an interview on Thursday, Gage pointed to a $101 million verdict returned last month in Boston in a malicious prosecution case against the federal government. The verdict was awarded by a federal judge in a case involving four men who were wrongly convicted of murder.

"There's going to be a new era for wrongful prosecution," Gage told a reporter. "It's no longer going to be fun for prosecutors to wrongfully accuse and malign honest, innocent people."

When asked if he was referring to himself, the lawyer replied, "I certainly am."

Gage also has gone on the offensive with a television commercial that has aired in recent weeks. It begins with Gage telling viewers that the United States was founded on the principle of equal justice.

"But these days, you can't count on equal justice when lobbyists for insurance companies write the laws," he proclaims. "To avoid compensating injury victims, there's a movement to prosecute the trial lawyers who seek justice for you. I'm going to continue to fight for justice and fair compensation for you when you're injured. My integrity is not for sale."

Gage, 69, has been practicing law in Las Vegas since 1997. His wife of 16 years, Ivy, is his partner at Gage & Gage.

"I had no intention of doing TV here, but I had to speak out," he said during an interview at his Summerlin office.

Gage said television viewers will see his face frequently in the coming weeks.

"You don't have a forum, as a defendant, until you get to trial," he said in explaining his decision to turn to television advertising.

Gage said he is continuing to handle personal injury and medical malpractice cases. He declined to say whether publicity about his criminal case has had any effect on business at his law firm.

His fraud trial is scheduled to begin Oct. 29 before Senior U.S. District Judge Lloyd George, but Gage said he wants it to take place sooner.

"I'd like it yesterday," he said.

Federal prosecutors declined to comment on Gage's statements or on Dershowitz's involvement in the case.

"We will present our case in the courtroom," said Steven Myhre, Nevada's acting U.S. attorney. "Whoever represents their side of the case is entirely up to them."

Court records show that Dershowitz filed a petition Aug. 10 for permission to practice in U.S. District Court in Nevada in the Gage case. The records now list both Dershowitz and Las Vegas attorney Tom Pitaro as Gage's lead attorneys in the case. Gage referred to Dershowitz and Pitaro as his "trial team."

Dershowitz was on vacation and did not return a message left at his office this week. Pitaro also could not be reached.

According to Dershowitz's Web site, he primarily focuses on teaching and writing. One of the frequently asked questions listed on the site is: How do I submit a legal case to professor Dershowitz?

The professor's answer: "I accept very few legal cases each year, and those I do accept are primarily appellate criminal cases."

In a 1993 interview with the Review-Journal, Dershowitz discussed his strict criteria for selecting cases.

"To me, it has to be a cutting-edge issue," he said.

Dershowitz, who was in Las Vegas at the time to speak at the 30th anniversary celebration for Reno's National Judicial College, said he received about 100 requests a week but accepted only about six cases each year.

"It has to be a case where I feel there's been an injustice," he said.

Dershowitz said he also looks for cases that would benefit from his experience and background, as well as those that would serve as a teaching vehicle for his students.

Although Dershowitz is known for defending clients such as Claus von Bulow, O.J. Simpson, Michael Milken and Mike Tyson, "he continues to represent numerous indigent defendants and takes half of his cases pro bono," according to his Web site.

Gage would not say whether he is paying Dershowitz.

Dershowitz, 68, joined the Harvard Law School faculty more than four decades ago. His book "Reversal of Fortune: Inside the Von Bulow Case" was released in 1986 and was made into an Academy Award-winning motion picture starring Glenn Close and Jeremy Irons.

Pitaro has filed a motion to dismiss the charges against Gage and requested the opportunity to present oral arguments on the matter to George.

If the judge grants the hearing, Gage said, the arguments will "illustrate that the U.S. attorney's office is very misguided in its prosecution of this case."

Pitaro's motion, as well as other documents filed in the case, outline complex legal issues that already have arisen in the matter.

For instance, the indictment accuses Gage and Awand of conspiring "to defraud and deprive clients of the honest services of their attorneys," but Pitaro is challenging prosecutors' use of this fraud theory in a case involving a private defendant, rather than a public official.

"The federal government by bringing this novel indictment against Gage ... is actively invading the traditional province of the State Bar of Nevada and its supervision of its attorneys," Pitaro wrote.

According to the indictment, Awand recruited a network of doctors who agreed to refer patients to him. The document alleges that Awand referred patients to personal injury lawyers, including Gage, in return for secret payments or promises from the lawyers not to file lawsuits against doctors in Awand's network.

Gage paid Awand and the doctors for the patient referrals with money from a client's settlements or judgments "through false pretenses," the indictment alleges.

According to a recent document filed by Pitaro, the indictment "does not allege, nor can it, that Gage received kickbacks or bribes from Awand or anyone else." Instead, Pitaro argued, the indictment "alleges that Gage paid Awand in return for the potential future referrals of additional clients -- a classic situation that has traditionally been the province of the State Bar of Nevada."

Gage denies he paid Awand from client funds and said the case has "absolutely no victim."

Prosecutors argued in a recent court document that they can properly prosecute Gage under the "honest services" theory of mail fraud.

"In the eyes of the law, there are few relationships that are more sacrosanct than that between attorney and client," prosecutors wrote. "It is beyond dispute an attorney owes his or her client a fiduciary duty."

In addition, prosecutors argued that the State Bar of Nevada "does not have exclusive jurisdiction to remedy the wrongs committed by Awand and Gage."

"Gage's claim notwithstanding, a license to practice law is not a license to steal," prosecutors wrote.

Gage received his law degree from the University of Michigan in 1962. He practiced law in both Michigan and Texas before moving to Nevada. He received a medical degree in 1985 from Spartan Health Sciences University, which he described as a foreign medical school operating in Texas. According to the school's Web site, it is located in the former British colony of St. Lucia in the West Indies.