Brewer Attorneys and Counselors

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NRA Trial – It Is Now In The Hands Of The Jury

February 16, 2024 by 2 Comments

The trial began on January 8th with the attorneys for the New York Attorney General’s Office making their case against the NRA, Wayne LaPierre, Woody Phillips, and John Frazer for breaches of the Estates Powers & Trust Law, breaches of fiduciary duties under the Not-for-Profit Corporation Law, related party transactions, violation of New York’s whistleblower law, and false filings. Josh Powell had earlier entered into a plea agreement in which he pleaded guilty and agreed to pay $100,000 in restitution. The state’s case was concluded on February 5th and then the attorneys for the NRA and the individual defendants began to make their cases for acquittal. Finally, today both sides gave their closing arguments and the jury will begin deliberation tomorrow.

In the interim, Wayne LaPierre’s reign over the NRA ended on January 31st. He announced his resignation on January 5th. One thing I did notice almost immediately after LaPierre’s announcement is that the attorneys from Brewer, Attorneys and Counselors, went from “keeping Wayne out of jail” to saying it was “all Wayne’s fault”. They have argued that Wayne, Woody, and company kept the NRA Board of Directors in the dark and, as such, the NRA can’t be held responsible for their actions.

The New York Attorney General’s Office’s Second Amended Complaint listed 15 causes of action against the NRA and the individual defendants. At the conclusion of the state’s case, attorneys for the NRA asking for a directed verdict saying, in effect, the Attorney General’s Office had not proved their case. Likewise, attorneys for the individual defendants argued that they were not liable under some of the causes of action. This past Monday, February 13th, Judge Cohen ruled on these motions. He rejected the NRA’s argument that the 1st Cause of Action – Breach of the Estates Powers & Trustees Law be dismissed over “vagueness”. He dismiss similar causes of action (6, 7, and 8) against the individual defendants holding that they could not be classified as “trustees” under the EPTL. With the exception of the related party transaction involving LaPierre which he dismissed today, all the other charges against the individual defendants remain.

One thing that has been often overlooked is that the victims in this case are those of us that are members of the NRA. Beyond paying for the private planes, suits, and trips for LaPierre, it has been our dues and contributions that have been used to pay the legal bills for both the NRA and the individual defendants. While I can’t speak for Woody Phillips, I am sure that both LaPierre and Frazer will submit bills to the NRA for their legal expenses to be reimbursed under the Directors and Officers insurance policy. This would be over and above what is being spent with Brewer, Attorneys and Counselors where it takes approximately the dues from 22 annual members to pay for one hour of legal representation.

I will cover the closing arguments in a separate post in order to keep this post from being too long.

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Judge To NRA’s Attorneys – Knock It Off!

December 28, 2023 by 5 Comments

I think Judge Joel Cohen is getting a little bit aggravated by NRA’s attorneys attempts to delay the trial before it starts.

The attorneys for the NRA, primarily Noah Peters, are trying to argue that the term “properly administered” is unconstitutionally vague. The term is used in New York’s Estates, Powers
and Trusts Law (“EPTL”) § 8-1.4(m) which provides the basis for the First Cause of Action against the NRA in the NY Attorney General’s amended complaint. In my layman’s opinion, properly administered means you don’t buy suits for Wayne, pay for hair and makeup for Susan, or take free trips from major vendors.

Reading the letters to the judge from both the NYAG and Peters, it appears that this motion to dismiss the First Cause of Action is the fourth such attempt. New York wants to respond to this motion 30 days after the jury delivers a verdict while Peters and the NRA want it ASAP. Both of these letters were sent yesterday.

You may remember that on the Friday before Christmas Judge Cohen had given the NRA a lump of coal when he told them to stop screwing around. He told them then that they could have made this motion months earlier and that he didn’t anticipate delaying trial preparation to give it any attention. Nonetheless, attorneys for the NRA as shown above have continued on their quest to delay.

Today, Judge Cohen issued another notice with regard to the aforementioned letters that the briefing and hearing schedule on the NRA’s motion is stayed until further notice.

From the Court Notice:

The Court has reviewed the NRA and OAG letters regarding the briefing schedule for the NRA’s recently filed motion to dismiss (NYSCEF 2569, 2570). The NRA’s concerns about the timing for briefing this belated and procedurally questionable motion ring hollow, as it is a circumstance entirely of its own making. The Court remains far more concerned about the motion interfering with the trial rather than the other way around. Until further order of the Court, the briefing and hearing schedule on this motion is stayed. The Court will discuss the schedule with the parties during a break in jury selection the week of January 2, 2024.

As I said, I’m just a mere layman when it comes to the law. However, when a judge calls your motion “procedurally questionable” and that your concerns “ring hollow”, he is telling you to knock it off. To continually ignore his plainly given signals as the NRA’s attorneys have done is both arrogant and stupid. This case is finally coming to trial almost 3 1/2 years after it began and Judge Cohen is not going to let anything that could have been done months ago delay it further. Bill Brewer and his group of lawyers need to recognize that and move on.

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NRA’s Mystery Case Revealed

September 4, 2023 by 6 Comments

First, there was a post in The Trace referring to a sealed case involving the NRA and its longtime advertising firm Ackerman McQueen. It turns out all we knew is that the NRA has subpoenaed Tony Makris’ wife Elicia Warner Loughlin. She went to US District Court in South Carolina to quash the subpoena as being “burdensome”. It should be noted at this time that the NRA has settled with Ackerman McQueen for $12 million. Further, Makris’ Under Wild Skies won a judgement for $500,000 +/- in Virginia state courts against the NRA.

Next, the blog NRA In Danger reported on another move to squash a subpoena issued by the NRA. This time it was Makris who went to US District Court in Virginia to squash it. That subpoena had been issued to his CPA firm of Fitzwater and Dean. On August 18th, Magistrate Judge John Anderson ruled in favor of quashing the subpoena. He said it was overbroad, would impose an undue burden, not timely, and that the information could be obtained elsewhere. He also refused to transfer the case to the US District Court in Texas. Judge Anderson did allow the discovery order to remain sealed pending orders from the court in Texas.

Thanks to Judge A. Joe Fish of the US District Court for Northern Texas unsealing the majority of the case on August 25th, we finally have an answer.

The NRA sued Ackerman McQueen and the Mercury Group for breach of contract on September 1, 2022. The complaint which was filed under seal alleges Ack Mac and the Mercury Group violated the terms of the Confidential Settlement Agreement (CSA) because Makris and Under Wild Skies was suing the NRA in Virginia state court. They contend that UWS was an affiliate company and that suit violated the $12 million settlement which was “a broad, mutual general release of all claims (the “Release”) among the parties and their affiliates and/or related companies.”

The complaint goes on to argue that since Tony Makris was a senior executive of Ack Mac and President of Mercury Group, he and Under Wild Skies were precluded from suing the NRA in state court as they were “intertwined” and thus bound by the CSA. AckMac and the Mercury Group are included this suit because they failed to “cooperate in the dismissal of the UWS litigation.” The NRA does acknowledge later in the complaint that UWS is an entity that is solely owned by Tony Makris and is a Virginia corporation.

What is ironic here is the claim by the NRA (or should I say Brewer, Attorneys and Counselors) that they only sued AckMac, the Mercury Group, and Under Wild Skies initially so that they could do their due diligence and comply with concerns of New York regulators.

The NRA is asking for damages in excess of $75,000, attorneys’ fees in both this and the UWS cases, and reimbursement with interest of the damages awarded by the Virginia court.

In response to the NRA’s allegations, AckMac and the Mercury Group acknowledge the CSA, the litigation in Virginia by UWS, and that Tony Makris is an officer of both AckMac and Mercury. There is stops. They say that Under Wild Skies is not an affiliate or related entity of either company. They deny UWS was bound by the CSA. They also say the lawsuit is moot because the Virginia court found UWS was not bound by the CSA and that a jury awarded UWS $550,000 in damages. It is also contended that this lawsuit is “collaterally estopped” due to the rulings of the Virginia court which disposed of the NRA’s argument that the CSA included Under Wild Skies. Given that, this argument cannot be raised again.

Later filings added Tony Makris personally as a defendant in the case. His brief for summary judgement filed in May 2023 argues that he was never a named party to the CSA. Further, that he individually was not a party to the litigation in Virginia between Under Wild Skies and the NRA. It was the corporation that sued the NRA and not Makris personally. He also argues that he was a beneficiary of the CSA and cannot be sued as it granted release from any liability, damages, etc “from the beginning of the world until the date of this release.” Included in that release were all “Ackerman parties” which included any past, present, or future officer, director, shareholder, principal, etc. of Ackerman McQueen and Mercury Group. The NRA explicitly has said that Makris was an officer and executive and thus he personally would be covered by the CSA.

I don’t know how this case will be resolved. However, given there are 171 entries in the docket, attorneys have come and gone from Brewer, Attorneys and Counselors, and there is a lot of back and forth on what can be introduced as evidence or what can be sealed, I think the real winners in this case will be the attorneys.

For the life of me, I cannot see what financial benefit will accrue to the NRA given the legal bills involved in trying to claw back the $550,000 paid to Under Wild Skies and perhaps some of the $12 million in the CSA with AckMac and Mercury Group. I don’t know if the Special Litigation Committee was involved in approving this lawsuit or if the Board was even informed. Regardless, this lawsuit seems more akin to the lawsuit that cost $8 million in legal fees so the NRA could avoid paying Chris Cox the $2 million in severance due him. They lost that case by the way. It just seems a frivolous waste of members’ dues that could have gone to more important things. You know like actually defending the Second Amendment against the predations of the Biden Administration.

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More Money Down The Drain At NRA

November 10, 2022 by 1 Comment

The Second Circuit Court of Appeals denied the NRA’s request for an en banc hearing in their lawsuit against Maria Vullo of the NY Department of Financial Services. They had originally sued her on First Amendment grounds saying she had violated their right to free speech and to equal protection of the law with regard to an investigation involving the NRA and three insurance companies.

This was an appeal from the court’s decision on September 22nd which reversed and remanded the District Court’s decision not to dismiss the NRA’s free speech claims against Maria Vullo. The court found that she was covered by qualified immunity.

So we see, yet again, that the vaunted legal prowess of Brewer, Attorneys and Counselors, is more a myth than a reality. When one sees how much the NRA has spent on legal bills with the majority going to Brewer, one has to wonder just what value that they got for that money.

To help put things in perspective, the legal budget of the Second Amendment Foundation was $1.8 million according to their new Executive Director Adam Kraut.

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Who Is The Real Enemy?

October 30, 2019 by 6 Comments

When you are in a war you always have to keep the end objective in mind. Is it merely to win the battle or ultimately to win the war? That seems to be the issue right now for the National Rifle Association.

The question for the NRA is who is the real enemy. Is it Ackerman McQueen or anti-rights groups like Brady United Against Gun Violence? It seems that this focus has eluded the outside attorneys for the NRA in their efforts to win the Federal lawsuit against AckMc.

The reply by the NRA filed with the US District Court in Dallas has given the anti-rights forces such as Brady, Media Matters, and others plenty of ammunition.

For example from a Brady email sent out night:

In more bad news for the NRA, newly uncovered court filings show that NRA executives themselves thought NRATV was blatantly racist. Yet they continued to let it air.

The timing is convenient: It’s been unearthed that the NRA opposed its own racist content only now that it’s in court against its longtime PR firm, Ackerman McQueen. 

This proves what we have long known: that the NRA will peddle any lie in order to protect its own interest — which is to sell more guns, no matter what the cost. But we’re calling them out. We won’t let them pretend they didn’t condone outright racism. They knew what they were selling.

And there is this from Media Matters:

The National Rifle Associated admitted in a legal filing that its former media operation NRATV was viewed by NRA leadership as racist and that the project’s programming “often became viewed as a dystopian cultural rant.” That is true, but the messaging at NRATV was largely indistinguishable from the racist paranoid rantings of NRA CEO Wayne LaPierre.

Michael Collins of Brewer, Attorneys and Counselors, may have thought including that inflammatory condemnation of NRATV in his court filings was wise. His goal after all is to savage AckMac so as to win this case.

I disagree.

Our blood enemies are those who would deprive us of our God-given rights to an armed self-defense. They will use anything and everything against us. Since much of their strategy involves using propaganda, the use of ill-chosen words that can come back to haunt us is self-defeating. We need to be smarter and we should demand that attorneys for Second Amendment organizations likewise be smarter.

The NRA and outside counsel Michael Collins should have remembered Napoleon’s advice – “when the enemy is making a false movement we must take good care not to interrupt him.” They have just given our blood enemies that “false movement”.

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NRA Statement On AckMac Suit

October 29, 2019 by 1 Comment

As I said earlier, the NRA filed an amended complaint in their lawsuit against Ackerman McQueen on Friday. This lawsuit is before the US District Court for the Northern District of Texas.

Official Picture from Brewer, Attorneys & Counselors

Michael Collins, a partner in Brewer, Attorneys & Counselors and the NRA’s attorney in the case, released this statement regarding the amended complaint. It was released, I believe, on Friday.

“The NRA believes Ackerman McQueen breached its fiduciary duties, engaged in fraudulent billing, and failed to maintain adequate books and records – all in an effort to enrich itself at the expense of the NRA and its members, ” says Michael J. Collins, partner at Brewer, Attorneys & Counselors and counsel to the NRA. “The allegations reveal a pattern of corruption that included NRATV, a failed media enterprise the agency proposed, managed and sustained through misleading accounts of viewership and promised commercial viability. In the end, the NRA believes NRATV became all ‘smoke and mirrors’ – a vehicle touted by Ackerman for the sole purpose of continuing the flow of millions of dollars of fees which the agency needed to sustain itself.”

Collins continued, “At the same time, when questions began to arise about Ackerman’s billing practices and whether it was taking advantage of the considerable discretion it possessed in such matters, the agency stonewalled the inquiry and embarked upon a scorched-earth campaign against all of its perceived adversaries. Ultimately, this included the CEO of the Association, executives, and outside professionals charged with obtaining answers to legitimate concerns about the agency’s practices. The NRA and its members are determined to ferret out what now appears to have been a considerable amount of corruption.”

Again, thanks to Stephen Gutowski of the Free Beacon for posting the statement from Michael Collins.

Amanda Suffecool of Eye on the Target Radio made a comment about this case tonight as we were recording the Polite Society Podcast which I thought was insightful. Watching the NRA/Wayne LaPierre and AckMac go after one another is like watching a bitter divorce in action. You have both parents fighting over the marital assets, you have both parents fighting for custody of the kids (the NRA members), and both parents are slinging mud for all they are worth. In the end no one wins and the kids are the victims.