Conrad Murray's Altadena Attorney Ordered to Stay Away from Former Colleague
http://altadena.patch.com/articles/...thouse-altadena-valerie-wass-michael-flanagan
Attorney Michael Flanagan, who represented Michael Jackson's physician Conrad Murray, claims that his former co-counsel, Altadena resident Valerie Wass, stalked and threw hot coffee on him.
A male attorney who ended his representation of Michael Jackson's physician in a dispute with the attorney's female co-counsel -- who was his alleged lover -- has obtained a three-year extension of a stay-away order against his former colleague.
The woman -- who said in court papers that the two attorneys were having an affair that led to the breakup of the male attorney's marriage --allegedly threw hot coffee on her former lover at a doughnut shop.
But lawyer Valerie Wass, who was ordered to stay away from former co-counsel Michael Flanagan, said the coffee was only "lukewarm," having been purchased 30 to 40 minutes earlier.
Pasadena Superior Court Judge Mary Thornton House directed Wass not to come within 200 yards of Flanagan, his business or his car. The Altadena resident also was directed not to harass or intimidate Flanagan. House's order last Wednesday extended to April 3, 2016 a temporary restraining order against Wass issued in March by another judge.
Flanagan had been assisting Wass, who is working as Dr. Conrad Murray's appellate attorney, seeking to overturn the physician's November 2011 involuntary manslaughter conviction in the June 2009 death of Michael Jackson.
In her reply to Flanagan's request for an extension of the stay-away order, Wass said she and Flanagan were involved in a nearly year-long affair and that the day after the relationship ended in mid-January, Flanagan's wife
told him to move out of their house.
"Since then he has turned on me and he has been extremely mean and nasty to me, he has used physical force against me, he has bullied me and tried to intimidate me, and he refused to uphold his professional responsibilities in regard to (Murray)," the 55-year-old Wass stated.
According to court papers filed by Flanagan's lawyer, Charles Unger, Wass confronted Flanagan on March 8 at a Winchell's doughnut shop on Lake Avenue.
"Miss Wass came into Winchell's ... yelling gross profanities and threw a scalding hot container of coffee at my face and torso," Flanagan stated in his court papers. "I was slightly burned by the coffee and also incurred
property damage to clothing."
Wass told a reporter afterward that she "should have shot me," Flanagan's court papers indicated.
Wass also has "stalked'' Flanagan other times at Winchell's, at Crispy's Deli in Glendale and at the jail, Flanagan's court papers state. She also has been "relentless with obscene emails to my office," Flanagan's court papers stated.
Flanagan alleged the situation got worse as time passed.
"In each of these incidents she used physical force and extreme profanity," Flanagan stated. "Each incident is getting progressively more violent."
In her declaration, Wass admits she threw coffee at Flanagan, but said it was "lukewarm, purchased 30 to 40 minutes before and I threw it at his chest, not his face, and he did not even flinch."
She said she tossed the coffee at Flanagan because he took property from her, pulled her out of a car and threw her into the street, yelled profanities at her and undermined her when talking to Murray.
"I was simply reacting as a person that had been pushed and bullied by him one too many times," Wass stated.
Wass denied stalking Flanagan and said the two often have gone to the same restaurants and other locations. She maintained Flanagan never returned the cell phone she lent to him in November and shoved her out of his car in
February in Glendale when she demanded he hand it over. She said that after she was ejected from the vehicle, Flanagan ran over her house key and that she could not get into her home for several hours until she obtained a spare key from a friend.
Wass said Flanagan is making her the "sacrificial lamb for his failed marriage."