by The fraud lawsuit against the National Rifle Association by donor David Dell’Aquila for the misuse of donations has now been revived. The NRA’s filing for bankruptcy and (deleted under threat of lawsuit) had put the case on hold for over a year and a half. Dell’Aquila was given until yesterday to get new attorneys or the case would be dismissed. Fortunately, new attorneys were appointed on Monday and the NRA’s Motion to Dismiss was removed meaning the case can move forward.
Bloomberg Law (the news site and not the gun control group) reported this about the new set of attorneys:
Jonathan Loevy and Michael Kanovitz, two partners at Chicago-based Loevy & Loevy, are now representing the donors alongside Stites & Harbison member John Wingo, who’s based in Nashville, and Louisville-based members T. Morgan Ward Jr. and Chadwick McTighe.
Loevy & Loevy handles complex litigation and commercial matters but is best known in Chicago for representing wrongfully convicted defendants seeking compensation from the state. The firm found out about the case when Bloomberg Law asked Kanovitz this month to review court documents and provide an independent expert opinion. He told Bloomberg Law the case was “absolutely a viable lawsuit” and days later approached Dell’Aquila and offered to represent him.
“This suit offers a unique opportunity to demand transparency from the NRA and reform the organization,” Kanovitz said in a statement. “We will conduct a fulsome investigation and follow the money. Our goal is to correct the misconduct that has been going on behind closed doors and obtain compensation for the people the NRA defrauded.”
The Loevy & Loevy firm and Michael Kanovitz appear to have both experience and success in class action lawsuits according to their website. Stites & Harbison is a large (185 attorney) Southeastern law firm with 11 offices across the South with the majority being in Tennessee and Kentucky. The three attorneys from this firm – Wingo, Ward, and McTighe – are all partners within the firm’s Business Litigation Service Group.
Dell’Aquila is quoted as saying he feels as though he just won the $1.5 billion lottery when these attorneys came on-board.
I think it just got a lot tougher for the NRA on this case.
UPDATE: I received an email today (12/21/2022) from an attorney. This attorney demanded that I remove all reference to the attorney or else the attorney would file suit for “libel, intrusion, and false light”.
While I think I would have been justified in telling this attorney, “No, I’m not changing it”, I don’t need the headache nor the potential expense defending it.
Using baseball, Brewer is like a Pitcher that’s won 5 world series.
I have to disagree on this.
He may have won some significant cases in the past. However, he is like the veteran (and aging) pitcher who goes to a new team that is desperate for help. He gets the big contract with plenty of guarantees. This and his attitude ruins the comradery in the clubhouse, he is the talk of the pre-season, and then has a lot of no-decisions or losses. He ends up costing the team a ton of money for which they still are paying on a contract long after they have replaced.