Class action attorney Stanley Chesley, the lawyer who some say pioneered the practice of mass class action claims, may take the witness stand in Covington, Ken., to testify in the federal criminal prosecution of three lawyers charged with allegedly bilking their clients out of tens of millions of dollars. Chesley is scheduled to be the next witness for the defendants, said Kyle Edelen, a spokesman for the U.S. Attorney’s Office in the Eastern District of Kentucky. A discussion of his possible testimony cropped up in proceedings this week, according to people who have been attending the trial at the U.S. District Court for Eastern Kentucky in Covington.
Chesley, a partner at Waite, Schneider, Bayless & Chesley in Cincinnati, worked with the three attorneys, William J. Gallion, Shirley A. Cunningham, Jr., and Melbourne Mills, Jr., on a case in which they represented 440 plaintiffs in a 1998 class action against the former pharmaceutical company American Home Products.
