officers - The Black Vault
officers - The Black Vault
officers - The Black Vault
You also want an ePaper? Increase the reach of your titles
YUMPU automatically turns print PDFs into web optimized ePapers that Google loves.
Rodn~y King.<br />
(Continued jhnn pagt• H2) cas~· ... and it<br />
turns out where IKingl was staying was<br />
right down the hill from where I live,"<br />
says Pa~adena attorney John Burton, a Police<br />
Watch co-chairperson. "I was flipping<br />
out. I was saying, 'Oh, please, I've<br />
got to get this case!' "<br />
But the rush to represent King was by<br />
no means limited to members of the brutality<br />
bar. <strong>The</strong> jail where he was being<br />
held for resisting arrest suddenly looked<br />
like an American Bar Association convention.<br />
"It was just ~ circus," says Robert<br />
Rentzer, a criminal lawyer in Los Angeles.<br />
"Everybody was trying to get a piece<br />
of Rodney."<br />
But they were too late. Someone had<br />
gotten there ahead of them.<br />
<strong>The</strong> attorney who'd already landed<br />
King's signature on a retainer agreement<br />
was not a member of the brutality bar, nor<br />
was he known to have ever tried a civilrights<br />
case. <strong>The</strong> legal community was<br />
stunned when it discovered that Steven Lerman,<br />
a P. I. specialist, had signed the client.<br />
"We in the police-misconduct bar in<br />
Los Angeles just consider [King's] hooking<br />
up with Lerman to be one of the great<br />
tragedies of the twentieth ·century;" said<br />
one disappointed lawyer, "sort of up<br />
there with the Moscow trials and the sinking<br />
of the Titanic."<br />
How did Lerman get the case? He refuses<br />
to say, citing attorney-client privilege.<br />
Angela King, who was privy to the<br />
decisions being made in the early hours of<br />
her nephew's trouble, says that Lerman<br />
was suggested to the family ~y Warren<br />
Wilson, a reporter at Channel 5-the station<br />
that had the Holliday videotape first.<br />
Wilson, one of the best-known black<br />
reporters in town, has been a fixture ori<br />
local television for years. He also has a<br />
law degree, although he has not yet<br />
passed the California bar exam. Wilson<br />
says that he does know Lerman, and that<br />
· Lerman's name was one of several he<br />
mentioned to the family while he was covering<br />
the story.<br />
<strong>The</strong> question of propriety seems obvious,<br />
but attorney Stephen Yagman, a police-abuse<br />
specialist who practices in Los<br />
Angeles and New York, says that reporters<br />
routinely steer potential clients to lawyers<br />
in L.A. "A lot of lawyers in this<br />
community, including me, have tie-ins<br />
with people in the media, people I'm buddies<br />
with. And if people say to them, 'Do<br />
you know a lawyer?' the reputable reporters<br />
will say,. 'I can't recommend a specific<br />
person,.but here are the names of three or<br />
15H<br />
four p~ople who do this.' <strong>The</strong> less ·able<br />
ones will ~ay. "This guy here is the<br />
he~t guy there i·~: I've gotten maybe 30<br />
per~·ent of the case~ we have from people I<br />
know in the media.··<br />
However Lerman got King, once he<br />
had him he held tight. Rentzer, who was<br />
hired by the family to handle Rodney's<br />
criminal charges, says he had an agreement<br />
that he would have a hand in the<br />
development of King's claim against the<br />
city. When the criminal charges were<br />
dropped, Rentzer says, "Lerman manipulated<br />
me out of the case.'' ''I would deny<br />
that. I chased him out," Lerman says_. _<br />
ur the elbowing to get close to Rodney<br />
was not limited to lawyers. Rod<br />
B<br />
ney's new fame caused a bitter rift within<br />
his family over such suddenly relevant<br />
matters as movie rights and merchandising-not<br />
to mention who would get to go<br />
on Donahue.<br />
Rodney's mother, Odessa, is a deeply<br />
religious woman whose faith prevents her<br />
from getting involved in matters of this<br />
world-a category in which her son's legal<br />
case securely fits. She stayed in· the<br />
background, and insisted that her 'four<br />
other children, also Witnesses, do so, too.<br />
That left a void, which Aunt Angela and<br />
Kandyce Barnes, the aunt of Rodney's<br />
wife, Crystal, struggled to fill.<br />
Kandyce had two advantages-she. was<br />
well spoken and, through Crystal, she had<br />
Rodney's ear. Angela says there have<br />
long been class tensions between the two<br />
families. "<strong>The</strong>y had some money, they<br />
had a home, and [to them] we were just<br />
~!urns-you know, lower-class people.<br />
..•. <strong>The</strong>y just pushed their way on in<br />
there."<br />
A month after the beating, Kandyce<br />
and Steven Lerman went to New York to<br />
appear on the Phil Donahue show, and,<br />
speaking for the family, she told the nationll_l<br />
television audience -that Rodney<br />
was "very paranoid." She said that he<br />
awoke in the middle of the night, screaming,<br />
"Don't beat me! Please leave me<br />
alone!" ·<br />
Aunt Angela went ballistic over the Donahue<br />
show: ''<strong>The</strong>se little aunts and the. inlaws,<br />
they get on there like they've been<br />
knowing Glen. <strong>The</strong>y don't know him. No,<br />
no. Noway .... <strong>The</strong>sepeoplearesnakes."<br />
And her antipathy was not eased by the<br />
events that occurred next.<br />
Kandyce, saying that she had experi-.<br />
ence in negotiations, persuaded Rodney to<br />
let her guide him as he chose among offers<br />
to buy the rights to his story. <strong>The</strong><br />
company she selected was an unknown<br />
newcomer, Trip~~ Entertainment.<br />
James Banks. the Triplc-7 vice president<br />
and lawyer. deseribes it as "a motion-picture<br />
producing company. as well<br />
as a television production company and<br />
a book company." Actually, that is a<br />
hopeful assessment. So far. the company<br />
has produced only a how-to-make-yourchild-a-star<br />
video, due out this summer.<br />
Banks says that Triple-7 "consists of<br />
people who have been in the entertainment<br />
business for many, many years,"<br />
but "because of their involvement in<br />
other projects they do not want to be<br />
·known at this time."<br />
<strong>The</strong> company was officially formed on<br />
May 1, 199 I, two weeks before it signed<br />
Rodney King. "As you can imagine, in<br />
the beginning, the bidding was horrible,''<br />
Banks says. "Everybody and his little<br />
brother was coming out of the woodwork<br />
to buy these rights, from one coast to the<br />
other."<br />
And how was Triple-7 chosen? Kandyce<br />
says that spe merely acted as a "go-.<br />
between;, for King, sorting out and presenting<br />
him with the various offers, and<br />
that Triple· 7 emerged as the best choice.<br />
Banks, however, says that Kandyce approached<br />
Triple-7 through a mutual<br />
friend, one of the silent partners. "It<br />
boiled down to the confidence . in the<br />
friendship, in the relationship, that did it<br />
for [King], no doubt about it in my<br />
mind," Banks says. He adds that Kandyce<br />
may get a co-producer's credit on the<br />
movie and the mini-series Triple-7 plans<br />
to make. ("I'm flattered to hear that,"<br />
says Kandyce.) ·<br />
Apparently, King had no advice on the<br />
negotiation except for that of Kandyce.<br />
Steven Lerman. says he did not participate.<br />
And Aunt Angela knew. nothing of<br />
the deal until after Rodney had signed it.<br />
"He was not even well yet-that's what<br />
made me sick.''<br />
But, Banks notes, "the document involved<br />
is as good as any Philadelphia lawyer<br />
could put together. It's a bona fide<br />
·contract." Banks declined to say how<br />
much Rodney was paid for signing the<br />
contract. Angela says she heard it was<br />
$20,000.<br />
And what did Triple-7 get for its money?<br />
"Rights to Rodney King's story,"<br />
says Banks, "lock, stock, and barrel."<br />
For Banks, an entertainment lawyer,<br />
and his partners, the King signing represented<br />
a ·magic entry into the big leagues,<br />
and to say he is enthused does an injustice<br />
to his enthusiasm. "I mean, what else can<br />
you compare this to? I don't think there:s<br />
anything else. Not since those boys [the<br />
Founding Fathers] signed that other document<br />
[the Constitution).<br />
VANITY FAIR /JUt Y 1992