Ellen A. Pansky (SBN 77688) Art Barsegyan (SBN 279064) PANSKY MARKLE ATTORNEYS AT LAW 1010 Sycamore Ave., Suite 308 South Pasadena, CA. 91030 Telephone: (213) 626-7300 Facsimile: (213) 626-7330 for Respondent |. Avenatti, Esq. FILED JUL 17 2019 we. STATE BAR COURT CLERK‘'S OFFICE LOS ANGELES BEFORE THE STATE BAR COURT OF THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA HEARING DEPARTMENT ~ LOS ANGELES In the Matter of MICHAEL JOHN AVENATTI, Member No. 206929, A Member of the State Bar. Case No. SBC-19-TE-30259-YDR RESPONDENT'S REPLY IN SUPPORT OF MOTION FOR CONTINUANCE OF TRIAL DATE; DECLARATIONS OF JAMES C. BASTIAN, JR. AND THOMAS D. WARREN IN SUPPORT Trial Dates: July 22 and 26, 2019, at 10:00 asm. RESPONDENT'S REPLY BRIEF IN SUPPORT OF MOTION FOR CONTINUANCE OF TRIAL DATERespondent Michael Avenatti respectfully submits this Reply brief, in support of his Motion for Continuance filed July 11, 2019 (“Motion”), and in reply to the State Bar's Opposition to Respondent's Motion for Continuance, which the State Bar filed on July 15, 2019 (“Opposition”) As discussed in the Motion, Respondent's request for a trial continuance is to allow Respondent additional time to obtain documents and files critical to his defense, which the Government and a court appointed Receiver, Brian Weiss, seized. The State Bar opposes the trial continuance because, it contends, the Receiver has never denied Mr. Avenatti access to his files related to the Barela matter and that neither Mr. Avenatti nor anyone on his behalf has requested from the Receiver a copy of the Eagan Avenatti LLP (“EA”) file for Barela. (Opposition at 2:1-10.) As the attached declarations and exhibits demonstrate, those claims are false. Mr, Avenatti has been seeking access to his files from the moment that he lost access to them the day after his arrest on March 25, 2019. This is hardly surprising, as an attorney’s files are the lifeblood of his or her firm. As the attached Declaration of James C. Bastian, counsel for Mr. Avenatti, makes clear, Mr. Avenatti and his counsel had emails and telephone calls with the Receiver in the days and weeks after Mr. Avenatti lost access to his servers in an effort to locate and gain access to them. In response to these entreaties, the Receiver claimed not to have control or access to the servers. Then, on April 14, Mr. Avenatti again reached out to the Receiver, again seeking access to the servers. The Receiver stated that he did not “expect to have possession in the week(s) to come.” The Receiver further stated that because the servers were offline, the hosting company would need to be paid $1,000 per month to reactivate and host the servers, and asked Mr. Avenatti if he would pay that monthly fee. Within 20 minutes, Mr. Avenatti responded to the Receiver's email and stated that he would be “happy to pay to host the servers provided [he] is given access.” ‘The State Bar’s Opposition relies almost entirely on the supporting Declaration of John P. Reitman, who is the attorney for the court appointed Receiver, Brian Weiss, who presently has possession and control over the EA computer servers and electronic files. The Declaration of Mr. Reitman, purports to outline the communications between himself and his client the Receiver on the one side and Mr. Avenatti and his attorney James Bastian on the other side, but grossly 1 RESPONDENT'S REPLY BRIEF IN SUPPORT MOTION FOR CONTINUANCE OF TRIAL DATEmischaracterizes the true chronology of events regarding the issue of Mr. Avenatti’s request for access to the EA servers, As an example, Mr. Reitman’s declaration fails to attach the April 14, 2019 correspondence between the Receiver and Mr. Avenatti, and fails to discuss either the Receiver’s offer to give Mr. Avenatti access to the servers if he agreed to pay to host them, or Mr. Avenatti’s agreement to do so. Moreover, Mr. Reitman’s declaration, at page 4, lines 24-26, and the Exhibit 3 attached thereto, directly contradicts the State Bar’s assertion that Respondent never requested access to the files from the Receiver. Indeed, Mr. Reitman states that the attached emails “were in response to a tum over demand from Avenatti to Mr. Weiss.” According to Mr. Reitman’s Declaration at paragraph 8, on or about April 30, the government retumed the servers to the Receiver. However, as provided in Mr. Bastian’s Declaration, the Receiver did not notify Mr. Avenatti or his counsel of that fact. The statement in Mr. Reitman’s declaration at paragraph 9, that upon Mr. Weiss’ receipt of the computer servers and the electronic files, he and Mr, Weiss notified Mr. Avenatti and his counsel that the items had been received by Mr. Weiss, is false. Instead, Mr. Bastian independently leamed on May 6, 2019, that the servers had been returned to the Receiver and had to reach out to Mr. Reitman himself to confirm that it was true, In that request, Mr. Bastian reiterated Mr. Avenatti’s request to have access to the servers “at Michael's expense.” In response, the Receiver changed his tune. No longer was the Receiver willing to give Mr. ‘Ayenatti access to the servers in exchange for Mr. Avenatti paying to host them. Rather, Mr. Reitman outlined a series of improper conditions for Mr. Avenatti to meet to access his own files, including it changed to also demanding that Mr. Avenatti pay for the cost of the Receiver to hire a third party forensic expert to conduct the search of specific electronic and forensic files on the server, which was an arbitrary and unnecessary expense because Mr. Avenatti had requested a copy of the entire server; that Mr. Avenatti obtain written authorization from clients including Mr. Barela; paying for a third-party consultant to locate documents on the servers; requiring Mr. Avenatti to pay, among other expenses, the cost of Mr. Weiss’ own accounting firm, Force 10 Partners, to supervise the review and copying of documents; requiring Mr. Avenatti to identify in advance particular records for which he wanted to search, despite Mr. Avenatti having requested a 2 RESPONDENT'S REPLY BRIEF IN SUPPORT MOTION FOR CONTINUANCE OF TRIAL DATE.