Monday, February 14, 2011

Conrad Murray Adds New Lawyer

Updated 2/15, 4:40 pm:According to CNN.com, Judge Pastor has delayed the addition of Nareg Gourjian to Murray's defense team until a possible conflict of interest issue can be further investigated.

From the CNN article:
The decision rests on if Gourjian's work for Jackson was "substantially related" to the current case and if his work for the defense would require "Gourjian to attempt to discredit his former client directly or indirectly," Pastor said.
Updated 2/15/2011:
According to Radar Online, the new member of Murray's defense team could create a conflict of interest. Sprocket___________
According to this CNN article, Joseph Low IV left Murray's defense team and has been replaced by Nareg Gourjian. Gourjian, formerly an associate of high profile attorney Mark Geragos where he assisted in the defense of Scott Peterson, Kazuyoshi Miura, and Chris Brown.

I got my first glimpse of Gourjian at one of the many hearings in the Miura case and if my memory serves me, he was in the gallery a few times during the Cameron Brown case. I was not very impressed with Low's closing argument for the defense at Murray's preliminary hearing. It also seemed to me that Judge Pastor had to educate the defense team what would happen next after the prosecution presented their closing argument.

To me, adding Gourjian to the team was a smart move. I suspect Gourjian is probably familiar with Judge Pastor's courtroom rulings from when Geragos's office was representing Cameron Brown.

1 comments:

Sprocket said...

Curiouser and curiouser.

When I first mentioned Nareg Gourjian being added to the defense team, I did not know he had previously been associated with the defense of Michael Jackson's molestation case.

I thought he was added because he was familiar with Pastor's court, his style and rulings. But this makes a much more interesting situation regarding "why" the defense had tried to add Gourjian!

Over at In Sessions Message Board on the Dr. Conrad Murray Forum, poster Adverse Party made an interesting post (on page 27 of a thread) about the Gourjian law firm's web site, and the description of Gourjian's history of cases he's worked on while at Geragos & Geragos.

On FEB 11th, prior to him being added to the case, a GOOGLE CACHE page of his web site read:


Upon graduating from Loyola Law School, Mr. Gourjian practiced for seven years with the prominent law firm of Geragos & Geragos. At the Geragos firm, Mr. Gourjian served as co-counsel with managing partner Mark J. Geragos on numerous high profile cases including King of Pop Michael Jackson, R&B singer Chris Brown, Scott Peterson, and hip-hop/rap artist Nate Dogg.

As of today, the web site reads a bit differently:

Nareg Gourjian joined the Gourjian Law Group in January 2010. Mr. Gourjian provides GLG the highest quality of service consistent with his training and background. Prior to joining Gourjian Law Group, Mr. Gourjian practiced for seven years with the prominent law firm of Geragos & Geragos. At the Geragos firm, Mr. Gourjian served as co-counsel with managing partner Mark J. Geragos on numerous high profile cases including R&B singer Chris Brown, Scott Peterson, and hip-hop/rap artist Nate Dogg.


Thanks to Adverse Party for doing the Google Cache search and finding that interesting update.

You have to wonder: Did Gourjian initially embellish his resume on his web site the cases he's worked on at Geragos & Geargos law firm? I think we will find out when Mark Geargos appears before Judge Pastor on Feb 24th to answer questions.