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Two Prominent Attorneys Subpoenaed in KPMG Case
Legal Times
August 21, 2007
Collateral damage from the KPMG tax shelter imbroglio has struck Hogan & Hartson and two of the firm's most prominent attorneys -- Prentiss Feagles, co-director of the firm's tax practice, and Paul Rogers, a partner in the firm's health practice.
Both lawyers were subpoenaed last month at the request of KPMG's lawyers at Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher, who are defending their client over work done on behalf of Bernard Salick. Salick is a Los Angeles physician and entrepreneur who filed suit in California Superior Court in March 2005 against KPMG after shady tax shelters were sold to him by the company. Salick used three shelters, all thrown out after state and federal tax audits, to shield a significant part of his estimated $100 million net worth.
At the request of KPMG, the Superior Court issued a subpoena, which was then approved by D.C. Superior Court on July 27, for all documents pertaining to work done for Salick by the two Hogan lawyers from January 1995 to November 2003. Feagles says Salick came to the firm as a client of Rogers.
"The records that were subpoenaed were on matters that are totally unrelated to the KPMG case," says Feagles. "I'm not totally sure why we're being asked questions. But it wouldn't surprise me if anyone doing tax work for him around that period of time is being brought into this."
Feagles says he did "probably an hour, an hour and a half, total of [tax] work," almost a decade ago. A deposition for Feagles -- to be taken by Gibson Dunn partner Michael Flanagan at the firm's D.C. office -- was scheduled for Aug. 13 but was indefinitely postponed. KPMG's lawyers did not return calls for comment.
