Here come da judge – and he’s gonna take a load off Fani

Here come da judge….

– PIGMEAT MARKHAM

Take a load off Fanny….

– THE BAND

Lawyering is hard work. First, you have to get a college degree. OK, that’s not hard work; that’s a four-year summer camp these days. But then you have to get into law school.

Once in law school, you waste three years being taught a lot of BS, but they never teach how to practice law. I got an ‘A’ in Property Law but was never taught how to buy a house. I got an ‘A’ in Contract Law but never drafted – or even read – a contract. I got an ‘A’ in Civil Procedure but was never taught when to stand up in a courtroom and when to sit down.

Then you have to take the Bar Exam to become a licensed lawyer. It’s in studying for the Bar Exam for a month that you finally learn some law. But you still don’t know how to buy a house, draft a contract, or when to stand up and when to sit down.

Then you have to find a job. That can be challenging. If you find a job in private practice, you have to bust your nuts for 5-10 years to make partner.

And you’re forever an hourly worker. At some point, your hourly pay can add up to a lot. But you’re never making money while you sleep. You make money by the hour.

(An old lawyer joke: A successful, fit lawyer died and went to heaven. At the gate, he told Saint Peter there must be a mistake. He explained that he was only 48 years old. His saintliness looked at his scrolls, peered over his reading glasses at the newly dead lawyer, and said, “Huh. According to your billing records, you’re 117-years-old. And you’re in the wrong place.”

All that said, I loved practicing law. It was a privilege, and I was fortunate to enjoy it with some remarkable people. But it’s no picnic, and certainly no vacation in Aruba.

Which brings us to a charming Georgia peach of a lawyer named Fanny. Er, I mean Fani. I’m told that the difference between Fanny and Fani is the pronunciation. The latter is pronounced FAW-nee. Or maybe it’s Faw-NEE.

However you pronounce the name, it’s particularly fitting for this woman, if you know what I mean.

Anyway, this steatopygiatic Fanny Fani is the District Attorney in Fulton County, Georgia who is prosecuting Donald Trump for the purpose of advancing her career under the pretense of prosecuting him for saying things he shouldn’t have.

Her case includes a charge of racketeering under the RICO statute, a law that was enacted to put mobsters in jail and used to great effect by one Rudi Guiliani in a prior life preceding the current life where it’s being used to great effect against him. (John Gotti must be smirking up in heaven, a place he got into because he may have stolen and murdered, but he never padded his hours).

Problem is, Fanny Fani has little or no experience in RICO cases. So, she naturally used three-quarters of a million taxpayer dollars to hire some help, who also has little to no experience in RICO cases.

The hired help happened to be her boyfriend. Although I mentioned that lawyers cannot make money while they sleep, this boyfriend did. His billings to the Fulton County District Attorney office included at least one day where he billed 24 hours. (Saint Peter, are you listening?)

Fanny Fani and the boyfriend went on half a dozen vacations to Aruba, Napa and the like. He paid her way, out of the three-quarter mil that she paid him with taxpayer money for his RICO “expertise.”

Ah, but she says she always paid him back for her share. In cash, and so there’s no record of it. And no record of any ATM withdrawals of that cash. And no record of him depositing any of that cash into any bank accounts.

Some ink has been spilled on the question whether their romance began before or after she hired him. She says it was after. That way, it could be not be said that she employed him because he was her boyfriend with whom she went on all those lavish vacations with money coming from taxpayers. Rather, all that could be said is that she continued employing him after he became her boyfriend with whom she went on all those lavish vacations with money coming from taxpayers.  

In any event, her former close friend testified under oath that she’s lying. The guy was her boyfriend when she hired him, said the close friend. In fact, the rumor is that Fanny Fani slept with the guy the day she met him, long before she hired him and maybe before she spoke to him.

All this adds up to what lawyers call “the appearance of impropriety.” If not the reality of it.

It may surprise you that lawyers are bound by rules of ethics. They’re not supposed to sleep with opposing counsel or with judges before whom they have a case because that creates a conflict of interest. They’re not supposed to steal clients’ money because that’s theft. They’re not supposed to lie to judges. (Lying to opposing counsel is not so bad, so long as you don’t sleep with them.)

And they’re not supposed to do or say things that create the mere appearance of doing any of those things.

One such activity with a bad appearance – bad optics, you might say – is taking or giving kickbacks. For example, a lawyer in private practice cannot ethically pay an officer of a corporate client for the privilege of representing that client. An in-house lawyer at a corporate client cannot ethically receive a kickback from a private practice lawyer whom the in-house lawyer hires for specialized legal work.

Fanny Fani may or may not have received kickbacks in the form of fancy paid vacations from her boyfriend whom she hired for RICO “expertise.” Maybe her story that she always repaid him – in untraceable cash – is the truth. But the whole scheme smells. It’s the appearance of impropriety, if not the reality.

I watched some of Fanny Fani’s testimony. To my eyes and ears, she’s a clumsy, bald-faced liar. More importantly, my read of the judge – an able judge who once worked as a lawyer in Fanny Fani’s office and undoubtedly picked up some juicy scuttle-butt – is that he thinks so too.

Fanny Fani cannot handle the load of a lawyer. I predict that the judge will take that load off her, for at least this case.