RICO Case Against Ex-Prosecutor Criminalizes $3M Glock Legal Fee Dispute, His Side Says
Accused of racketeering and theft in connection with his work as outside legal counsel for Glock Inc., a former federal prosecutor and onetime candidate for Georgia attorney general did nothing wrong, his team says.
James “Jim” Harper III, 55, was indicted in Cobb County last month along with two associates, a businessman and sole practitioner Jeffrey Pombert, 42. But the entire case is nothing more than a fee dispute sparked by the Austrian gunmaker’s apparent unhappiness with their work on a corporate investigative project for Glock, according to Harper’s lawyer, Donald Samuel of Garland Samuel & Loeb, and his brother, insurance defense attorney Thomas “Tom” Harper of Harper Waldon & Craig.
Samuel says the case will never get beyond a directed verdict for the defense, and Tom Harper describes it as “criminalizing a fee dispute,” recounts the Daily Report in an article reprinted in New York Lawyer (reg. req.)
“He was employed by Glock. Glock hired him and his group to do an internal investigation. He traveled all over the world in pursuit of that investigation. He had people who were accountants, lawyers, former federal law enforcement officers, working with him. He reported to Mr. Glock personally. He was thorough, meticulous in his work. He documented what he did. He submitted his bills in the manner they asked him to,” Samuel tells the legal publication. “There is absolutely zero truth to the allegation that he stole from them or defrauded them or anything remotely close to that.”
The Cobb County district attorney’s office declined the Daily Report’s request for comment.
Earlier coverage:
ABAJournal.com: “Ex-Prosecutor Accused in Alleged RICO Scheme to Bilk Corporate Client of $3M”
