McGuire-Woods LLP. Partners drowning in criminal and ethics violations
Two of the most prominent McGuire-Woods partners in Richmond, Va. have found themselves entangled in a web of corruption, ethics violations and criminal actions involving an "international fugitive" who was their client.
Attorneys Howard "Toby" Vick and W. Birch Douglass III attempted to cover up a legal ethics situation which originated in 1998-99, when a McGuire-Woods client named Nickolas G. Spanos was indicted by a Multi-jurisdictional Grand Jury for allegedly conspiring to distribute more than 600 kilos of cocaine in the Richmond area. Howard Vick was the Henrico County Commonwealths Attorney who engineered the case against Spanos in 1997-99 for 13 counts of conspiracy to distribute cocaine.
Unknown to Howard Vick, Spanos was a client of McGuire-Woods since 1992 upon the death of his father, which appointed him Trustee of his late fathers estate. W. Birch Douglass represented numerous members of the Spanos family, which included Nickolas Spanos, his mother, two sisters and an uncle.
Just prior to the grand jury indictments being announced to the public on December 05, 1998, Nickolas Spanos was in Athens, Greece, after being warned by HCCA Howard Vick that indictments would be issued against him and that he had the "option" of leaving for Greece but "could not return. SEE PREVIOUS ARTICLE ON COVERING UP AN EXTRADITION
It is unclear at that time if Howard Vick knew that Spanos was a McGuire-Woods client but Howard Vick was negotiating a partnership with McGuire-Woods managing partner Richard Cullen. SEE ARTICLE ON VICK REUNITES WITH CULLEN AT MCGUIRE-WOODS
This begins the entangled web, if Vick was to make good on his public threat of extraditing Spanos from Greece and having him stand trial for the alleged cocaine distribution indictments, it would extinguish his golden ticket partnership with McGuire-Woods. McGuire Woods LLP. is a U.S. law firm with more than 1,000 attorneys in 23 offices across the United States, Asia and Europe. The firm's largest offices are in Richmond, VA, Charlotte, NC, and Chicago, IL
Despite Vick issuing federal warrants for unlawful flight to avoid prosecution on December 11,1998, Vick never pursued the extradition nor did he even cancel Spanos's U.S. passport, which could have easily had him deported as an undocumented foreigner. Despite Spanos being of Greek heritage, his Greek citizenship was not formalized until 2000, thus he was in Greece on a U.S. passport.
At some point after the December 05, 1998 media announcement, Birch Douglass must have informed McGuire-Woods managing partner Richard Cullen that Spanos and his family were all clients of McGuire-Woods, Douglass could have possibly known of the upcoming partnership with Howard Vick. This valuable information must have been passed on to Howard Vick, which had to make a very dangerous decision, violate his sworn oath to the Virginia Commonwealth Attorneys Office, turning his back on the justice system he had fought for almost 20 years, in turn selling his soul for the "golden ticket" with McGuire-Woods. Howard Vick could not have both. Despite Spanos daring Vick to bring him back and that Vick's case was built on fabrication, lies and false testimonies, Vick responded by only barking at Spanos in the media.
HCCA Howard Vick's case against Spanos got stronger as three of Spanos's associates pleaded guilty to distribution of cocaine in April 1999, despite knowing Spanos's exact location in Athens, Greece, Howard Vick sat on the federal arrest warrant and 13 grand jury indictments as he negotiated his partnership with McGuire-Woods. This decision would haunt him 20 years later.
In May 1999, one of Spanos's sisters sent him a letter requesting Spanos to resign as the Trustee of his late fathers multi-million dollar estate. Nickolas Spanos called Birch Douglass to obtain legal advise, in which Birch Douglass stated that there was no provision for his removal as Trustee and their was no reason why estate business could not be conducted through phone calls, email and courier service. Spanos gave Birch Douglass all his contact details, in which Birch Douglass sent Spanos via mail, information on a pending VDOT condemnation of a land partnership involving the estate. Nickolas Spanos then informed his sisters and mother of the legal advise Birch Douglass had given him and that he would not resign as trustee.
On August 06, 1999, Spanos's mother and sisters, all clients of Birch Douglass, submitted to Henrico County Circuit Court to remove Nickolas Spanos as trustee and appoint them as trustees. Knowing this was a tremendous ethics violation, representing the same clients and filing cases against each other, is a big no-no in the legal profession. In doing so, McGuire-Woods would solve the one problem of representing "international fugitive" Nickolas Spanos while establishing a partnership with HCCA Howard Vick, thus hopefully eliminating a conflict of interest. The factors of excessive legal fees to transact this enormous ethical violation would be billed to George Spanos Family Estate while Nickolas Spanos was still Trustee, another ethical violation.
Their greed was even more evident when they asked Birch Douglass to draft an October 01, 1999 trust agreement which would replace the trust that George Spanos had made for his only son to protect him from that same greed of the family members. The newly drafted trust agreement would cause Nickolas Spanos enormous financial damage and undermine the trust that George Spanos had in McGuire-Woods partner Birch Douglass. Birch Douglass agreed to draft the October 01, 1999 trust agreement and gave it to the mother and sisters to sign, in which they did and later recorded in Richmond city.
On October 16, 1999, the subject motion to remove Nickolas Spanos as trustee of the George Spanos Family Estate was ordered and replace him with his mother and two sisters. The service process to serve Spanos was served at his mothers home not at Spanos's address in Athens, Greece where all parties knew this was his permanent residence. Birch Douglass and William M. Hutchins knew that all civil service process must be served through the HAGUE CONVENTION ON THE SERVICE ABROAD OF JUDICIAL AND EXTRA-JUDICIAL DOCUMENTS IN CIVIL OR COMMERCIAL MATTERS, but yet they turned their back on their client Nickolas Spanos, taking away his due process of law, violating their legal sworn duty to their client and violating the Virginia State Bar Code of Professionalism. Nickolas Spanos was not informed of any of these illegal actions against him until sometime in April 2000 when he inquired why no estate documents had been sent to him, upon inquiring to his family, they informed him that they had removed him as trustee and that it was done by McGuire-Woods law firm. CLICK TO VIEW PDF MCGUIRE-WOODS/SPANOS FILINGS
Nickolas Spanos attempted to contact Birch Douglass but Douglass would not accept his phone calls or communicate with him nor did Birch Douglass verify to him of the unethical removal as his late fathers wishes as trustee. Spanos then contacted his family demanding the estate accounting, in which they replied by fax "do not bother us any more, are you stupid". Spanos sent the subject fax to Birch Douglass and stated "this is what you have done, do you understand why my fathers wishes were for me to be trustee, as he did not trust his daughters to carry out his wishes". Birch Douglass realized what an ethical mess he made and decided to send all the Spanos family files back to them by courier with a short note that they could no longer represent them as there was a "conflict of interest". Birch Douglass never notified Nickolas Spanos that he was terminating the relationship or did he send his files back, thus the Attorney-Client relationship still existed.
Howard Vick was now free to join McGuire-Woods as a partner, in which he tendered his early resignation as Henrico County Commonwealths Attorney in May 2000 and formally joined McGuire-Woods in June 2000. Unknown to Howard Vick and Richard Cullen, the Attorney-Client relationship with Nickolas Spanos still existed and would continue to until November 2017.
To insure further that the Spanos issue would not come back to haunt McGuire-Woods Howard Vick and Birch Douglass, they pressured Howard Vick's successor, Wade Kizer, to the Henrico County Commonwealths Attorneys office to have the 1998 federal warrants for unlawful flight to avoid prosecution dismissed by order of a government motion on July 06, 2001 (see above article photo). This would remove "international fugitive" Nickolas Spanos from any criminal search database, this action would prove successful. On September 10, 2006, Nickolas Spanos walks into the U.S. Embassy Athens and applies to renew his USA passport, 4 days later, he picks up his brand new USA Passport with no questions asked. His previous USA passport expired on June 14, 2003.
For 11 years, Nickolas Spanos would travel around Europe and Asia with no complications, the McGuire-Woods partners had forgotten about Nickolas Spanos until October 18, 2012 when by some fluke he was arrested by Philippines Immigration officials from an alert by U.S. Embassy Manila legal attaches who were tipped off by a disgruntled ex-girlfriend of Spanos.
The U.S. Embassy Manila legal attaches (FBI) would inform Henrico County Commonwealths Attorney Shannon Taylor that they had caught their fugitive and they would cancel his U.S. passport and have the Philippines Immigration deport him. The technical problem arose that Spanos had only travelled to the Philippines with his Greek issued passport under the name Nikolaos Spanoudis. The FBI declared to Philippine officials that it was a fraudulent passport and that he was to be deported to the USA. The Greek embassy in the Philippines quickly confirmed in two weeks that in fact Spanos aka Spanoudis passport was certified authentic. The U.S. embassy FBI notified HCCA Shannon Taylor must process an extradition request from the Philippine government as they could no longer deport him as the Greek government nationality took priority.
This created another problem for McGuire-Woods partners, if Spanos was to be extradited to Henrico County to face the 13 grand jury indictments, a good defense attorney would most likely discover the numerous illegal cover ups by the three generations of Henrico County Commonwealth Attorneys spanning 16 years which would raise numerous due process violations and the charges would be dismissed.
Under the Philippine-USA Extradition treaty, Spanos was to only be held for sixty days under provisional arrest and if the U.S. DOJ did not submit the required documents for extradition, then Spanos would be set free. Despite numerous requests by the Philippines DOJ for certified authenticated copies of the grand jury indictments, HCCA Shannon Taylor continued to refuse their requests, hoping that they would set Spanos free. Unfortunately for McGuire Woods partners and the HCCA, corrupt Philippine Immigration officials took advantage of the situation and attempted to extort Spanos for $150,000 as to release him, instead of paying, Spanos fought back filing numerous criminal complaints against them. All this created a problem between U.S. embassy FBI, HCCA Shannon Taylor and Philippine DOJ officials. CLICK TO VIEW U.S. Embassy Manila legal attaches tied to extortion syndicate
Nickolas Spanos was held in a Philippine jail for 19 months under inhumane conditions with denial of due process, denial of medical treatment and numerous human rights violations while waiting on HCCA Shannon Taylor to process an extradition request, which she never did. On June 01, 2014, Philippine DOJ officials deported Spanos back to Greece.
Shannon Taylor knowing that Greece would not extradite one of their own citizens and wanting to cover up her illegal actions in the Philippines, she assigned Henrico County Assistant Commonwealths Attorney Michael Y. Feinmel to issue an Interpol Red Notice for Spanos arrest while he was in transit to Greece, upon landing in Greece, Spanos was arrested and held pending an extradition request by the HCCA.
On September 24, 2014, a Greek tribunal denied the extradition request by the U.S. DOJ but had charged Spanos for the 13 grand jury indictments under Greek law. The Greek justice ministry requested from HCCA that they provide all evidence in the case against Spanos. The HCCA office never responded to their requests and Spanos was tried based on the evidence presented in the Extradition request. The trial was set for March 27, 2015 and Spanos was to be held at Korydallos prison until his hearing.
On January 13, 2015, while Spanos was in prison, his mother passed away from complications arising from a broken hip at her daughters house, the delay in receiving immediate treatment led to complications and his mother was in a coma until her death.
On March 27, 2015, a Greek tribunal dismissed all charges against Spanos and released him from Korydallos prison, during that time he never had a chance to speak with his mother prior to her death.
On June 15, 2015, the attorney for the Artemis X. Spanos estate, Robert Freed, sent Spanos a copy of her will and his trust, which for the first time Spanos learned that his original trust set up for him by his late father had been replaced with the October 01, 1999 trust, which substantially damaged his financial position. The other major factor was that in the original trust, Spanos was named trustee but in the October 01, 1999 replacement trust, a sister in which they had hostile relations was named trustee, which inflicted great mental stress on Spanos.
Spanos had lost his very successful company in the Philippines which employed over 400 people and thus concentrated on reuniting his family from the Philippines to Greece, which after 6 months he brought his wife and son to Greece.
Over the next 2 years, Spanos struggled with his trustee sister and the obvious hatred did not diminish, he had to take some legal action in which he decided to contact his trust attorney. On December 04, 2017, Spanos wrote an email to Birch Douglass, informing him of the problems with his sister trustee and what action could be taken for him to resolve it. Only then on December 05, 2017 response email by Birch Douglass did Spanos learn that McGuire-Woods had terminated their client relationship as quoted below:
"Neither I nor anyone else at McGuireWoods has had any contact with members of the Spanos family for over 15 years and do not serve as attorney for you or any members of your family and are not willing to do so in the future because of ethical conflict of interest considerations based on prior legal representations."
Birch Douglass
Spanos wrote to Birch Douglass that he had never been informed of the termination of representation, or that his files had been returned to him. Spanos requested that his files be returned, Birch Douglass never responded or returned his files.
Spanos retained the services of an attorney to assist in retrieving court documents filed by McGuire-Woods attorneys and to contact them in reference to the ethics violations and to address the concerned issues, no reply was made by McGuire-Woods.
Attorneys Howard Vick and W. Birch Douglass were contacted for comments but they did not return emails. William M. Hutchins, who left McGuire-Woods llp. to become a Senior Vice-President with The Trust Company of Virginia, had suffered a stroke sometime after being informed by Spanos's attorney of the ethics violations and request for his malpractice insurance carrier.
Further updates to this article will be posted as they surface.
