Mitchelson Probe Reviews Remark of Ex-Secretary

A Los Angeles County deputy district attorney who was once a secretary to celebrity divorce lawyer Marvin Mitchelson reportedly told State Bar investigators this week that her former boss made a statement that she interpreted as a damaging admission when she raised an accusation that he had raped a client.

Deputy Dist. Atty. Linda Acaldo told State Bar investigators, according to sources familiar with her statements, that she saw a news clipping about the accusation and mailed it to Mitchelson with a note that said, “The minute I saw this, I knew you were guilty.”

Acaldo recalled, the sources said, that when she later went to visit Mitchelson in his office, he greeted her with a laugh. He then quoted her note and said, “Linda, you know me so well.”

Mitchelson, through his attorney, Harold Rhoden, denied Thursday that any such encounter had taken place.

‘Did Not Happen’

“He never at any time received any kind of clipping from Linda Acaldo on this subject matter, and also no kind of a note,” said Rhoden, after conferring with Mitchelson. “That just did not happen.”

Rhoden said he had advised Mitchelson not to speak to the press directly, and Mitchelson did not return a reporter’s call.

However, Rhoden said:

“Anybody that knows Mitchelson would know a long laundry list of bad things about him . . . because he’s as human as the rest of us. . . . But also, anybody who knew him well, as Linda did, would know that Mitchelson would be incapable of committing the crime of rape . . . because of the kind of guy he is.”

Mitchelson has been under scrutiny by authorities examining rape accusations against him made by two former clients for much of the last two years. Los Angeles police, the district attorney’s office, the state attorney general’s office and the county grand jury have investigated. But prosecuting agencies have declined to charge Mitchelson, citing insufficient evidence.

The reported statements by Acaldo to the State Bar, which is now examining the allegations, represent the first time someone close to Mitchelson has lent the accusations even limited support.

Acaldo, who served as Mitchelson’s secretary from 1973 to 1978, declined to comment Thursday. But she told the Bar that her recollection was that the news clipping concerned a rape allegation by Patricia French, who made the charge publicly in a 1983 lawsuit against Mitchelson, sources said. French recently lost an arbitration hearing on the suit, but has demanded a jury trial.

Acaldo also provided support for an unusual aspect of the account of another Mitchelson client, who has also publicly charged that Mitchelson raped her, according to sources familiar with her statements.

This client, Kristin Barrett-Whitney, has told authorities that Mitchelson raped her in his office in 1985 after feigning a heart attack.

Acaldo, the sources said, told State Bar lawyer Victoria Molloy and investigator Kathleen Miller on Wednesday that Mitchelson often pretended he was having a heart attack as a ploy to get something he wanted, including sex.

Acaldo said she knew Mitchelson intimately--that she had had an affair with him for four years during her employment as his secretary, sources said.

Rhoden said he knew nothing of an affair, but said that Mitchelson had encouraged Acaldo to go to law school and had helped her get jobs, apparently by providing letters of reference, at the state attorney general’s office in Oregon and at the Los Angeles County district attorney’s office.

Acaldo, 41, is a 1982 graduate of Southwestern University School of Law. She went to work for the district attorney office’s in 1984 and is now a trial deputy assigned to the complaints division downtown.

Flair for Dramatic

Mitchelson, 60, is as well known for his dramatic flair and courtship of the media as for his legal victories.

Rhoden said of the reported heart attack allegation: “It doesn’t even make sense to me. Have you ever heard of a guy pretending to have a heart attack as a means of seducing a woman?”

State Bar investigators subpoenaed Acaldo as part of their investigation of complaints against Mitchelson from former clients.

The Bar last month accused Mitchelson of violating professional standards by mishandling clients’ funds. The Bar’s office of trial counsel filed documents asserting that “reasonable cause has been found” to conduct a formal disciplinary hearing into charges that Mitchelson failed to promptly return unearned fees to three clients who fired him, and never returned unearned fees to a fourth client.

The bar also charged that Mitchelson failed to deposit clients’ funds in trust accounts, charged “unconscionable” fees, showed a lack of diligence, made a false representation to a client and twice improperly asked a client to withdraw her complaint to the State Bar in return for his giving back unearned fees.

Denies All Charges

Mitchelson has denied these charges, as well as the rape allegations.

The district attorney’s office investigated the rape allegations by French and Barrett-Whitney, and concluded there was insufficient evidence to charge him with a crime.

During the district attorney’s probe of the allegations, Acaldo was interviewed by investigators but did not provide them with the information that Mitchelson feigned heart attacks nor with the story of his reaction to the news clipping, according to sources familiar with those statements.

However, she did tell them, the sources said, that Mitchelson used cocaine every other day and that he abused the prescription drug Percodan; that he frequently made passes at women; frequently met alone with women clients in his office late at night, and sometimes showed up for work wearing only his bathrobe. She also said that during her affair, she had had to fight off unwanted sexual advances twice, the sources said.

“As for the bathrobe bit,” said Rhoden, “there were times, it is true, when Marvin would come back to the office (after a day in court). . . . He was exhausted. He’d go and he would take a bath. He had a private john next to his office, and he’d come out and instead of putting on his clothes immediately, he’d put on his robe. . . . It’s possible, I suppose, that there were times he saw a client (that way). . . . I think it may have been in bad taste, but it’s not an offense for the Bar.”

About drugs, Rhoden said:

“If every judge and every lawyer and every doctor in this community who had ever taken any coke would go before the appropriate disciplinary committees, things in our community would come to a screeching halt. . . . Even if Marvin had done it, and I cannot concede that he did, he’s got an awful lot of company, and it was 10 years ago. What, in the name of common sense or fair play, is the sense of bringing that up now? . . . I don’t know why Linda is doing that to a guy who helped her become a lawyer.”

Acaldo also told the State Bar that Mitchelson often got women clients to invest money with him, promising to pay them 10% interest, according to the sources.

The prosecutor said that Mitchelson would pay the interest, but that he would sometimes not invest the principal, the sources added. Instead, she reportedly said, he used the principal to gamble, to pay rent and other bills, to buy clothing and cocaine.

Rhoden, after conferring with Mitchelson, said, “That too is false. . . . To the extent there is any truth in it at all, Mitchelson has had two clients of very long duration--about 15 years. When he has needed money to borrow for himself, he has borrowed money from them at 10% interest on loans which were secured. These were never investments and never thought of by the clients as investments. On one, the loan was fully paid back. On the other, it’s an ongoing situation. He’s up to date on his payments.” Acaldo told the Bar that she had picked up cocaine for Mitchelson from another attorney, who is now dead, on several occasions, without knowing what it was, the sources said.

The sources said she told the Bar that she learned what she was carrying when she saw Mitchelson open an envelope she gave him, saw that it contained cocaine and observed him snort it.

She told the Bar, the sources said, that Mitchelson stole from clients and that she argued with him many times about his use of cocaine and use of client funds. She also told the Bar, the sources said, that he had admitted to her that he knew he was a thief.

Rhoden said Mitchelson told him that “at no time did Linda ever say anything to him that you’re stealing from clients. He would never have tolerated that sort of insult . . . (and) never did he say to her that he was a thief.”