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My Story
Name William J. Evers
Address 2036 August - Apt. G
City Green Bay
State Wisconsin
Zipcode 54302-3829
Phone 920- 469-7824
In my opinion the most corrupt, incompetent, and crooked attorney in the state of Wisconsin is;
Atty. Robert J. Lerner
823 N. Cass Street
Milwaukee, Wisconsin
Robert J. Lerner is the classic case of an incompetent and crooked attorney that gives all attorneys a bad reputation.
I had the unfortunate experience of hiring Mr. Lerner to represent myself and a person I had sold some businesses
to in a liable lawsuit in 1986. During his representation he failed to file the proper motions or even ask the
right questions during deposition proceeding.
We paid him $10,000 as a retainer that he never gave us credit for any of it and later sent a billing for his actual
time that totaled only slightly more than $4000. By this time was also representing us in a criminal case that
I will explain later. His unethical and incompetent representation in the criminal case cost us all of out assets
so all I had left to pay him with was a show car worth $12,000 to $16,000. We agreed that he would take the automobile
top Milwaukee, sell it for a minimum of $12,000, take the $4000 he was owed, and return the balance of the sale
price to us.
Mr. Lerner then took the title to the automobile and signed it over to himself claiming the sale price was only
$1000. He did this for two reasons, to defraud his client and to cheat the State of Wisconsin out of sales tax
on $11,000. He then sent the automobile to his father-in-law who was a Chicago car dealer. From there it was taken
to Florida and sold by one of Mr. Lerner’s friends. They claimed the sale price was only $500 so as to cheat the
State of Florida out of their used car import fee and sales tax.
As a result of Mr. Lerner’s representation in the liable lawsuit he advised me, and insisted, that I settle for
a $5000 judgment against myself even though I felt there was no evidence of liable or slander nor had the other
party suffered and damages. Later, representing myself pro se, I had the $5000 judgment dismissed. In effect, Mr.
Lerner’s incompetent representation was worse then no representation at all. During the course of this case I paid
$22,000 for approximately $4,500 worth of very incompetent representation.
While Mr. Lerner was representing me in the liable case my wife, the person I had sold the businesses, and myself
were charged with some crimes. My wife and I were innocent of these charges and Mr. Lerner was hired to representing
all three of us but the third party decided to become a witness for the state. Mr. Lerner had a duty at that time
to inform his clients and the court that he had a conflict of interest and remove himself from any further representation
of all parties. Instead he stayed on and claimed he would have a conflict of interest representing both my wife
and I.
He then made arrangements for me to be represented by the public defenders office. I ended up with another incompetent
attorney from Sturgeon Bay, WI. who had just returned to the practice of law after being censored by the Supreme
Court, who was a public drunk, had no money or funds, who suffered from manic depression, and had no business practicing
law at all.
After complaining about the total lack of any qualifications of this appointed attorney Mr. Lerner helped me obtain
a second attorney. This one turned out to be a married woman from Sturgeon Bay who also happened to be the trial
judges mistress. I have an affidavit from her to prove that and it was also public knowledge. My trial proceeded
and of course I was convicted.
During this time Mr. Lerner was supposedly representing my wife. He was paid $35,000 in cash as a retainer and
only recorded $15,000 of that amount. He then went to the court and made a deal to get any additional money he
was due from the forfeiture of our property. This should have been the handwriting on the wall but we were not
told of this deal until after the trial was over.
My wife, who was innocent of any crimes, wanted to go to trial and be found innocent but Mr. Lerner had several
problems with this. First and foremost, he could not go to court because the witness against my wife was his former
client.
In addition, he did not prepare for a trial, he did not conduct any investigation, and he did not even know the
appropriate law. Instead he called my wife one morning and told her to go down to the D.A’s brother’s office and
sign over deeds to about $235,000 worth of real estate claiming he had made a deal.
When my wife refused to do this Mr. Lerner told her that if she did not do it immediately she would go to prison
for 5 or 10 years and our adopted son, who was 6 year sold, would be taken away from her. With that threat she
did what she was told to do.
My wife eventually entered a no contest plea and when the D.A. violated the so-called plea agreement by taking
another piece of real estate Mr. Lerner made no objection. In effect, Mr. Lerner, in a conspiracy with Outagamie
County, defrauded us out of over $250,000 to cover $100,000 of imposed costs that were illegally assessed in the
first place.
In addition Mr. Lerner entered into another secret deal with Outagamie county and under a fictitious case law number
turned over to Outagamie County all our personal property to help satisfy the $100,000 in imposed costs that were
already overpaid by $150,000.
Much later I obtained a copy of Mr. Lerner’s invoice to Outagamie County. It showed that Mr. Lerner had not
recorded $20,000 of the $35,000 we had paid him in cash. In addition he charged for services never performed, charged
for service performed in the civil liable lawsuit, and charges twice for some services in the criminal case and/or
the civil case.
At this point in time I still was not aware of how incompetent and crooked Mr. Lerner was. He told me my case was
so bad it would be overturned on appeal and specifically mentioned that the sexual affair that was going on between
the trial judge and my attorney required a reversal on appeal.
Mr. Lerner then made arrangements with the public defenders office to have himself appointed to represent me on
my direct appeal.
Mr. Lerner then sat on the appeal for a couple of years and did nothing. Finally when I pushed him to do something
he filed a 20 page brief addressing irrelevant issues and the brief was so bad the attorney general stated in his
reply brief that Mr. Lerner’s brief was so bad it could not even be considered by the court of appeals. Oral arguments
were held and during that hearing the court cited case law that was relevant and several years old.
Mr. Lerner admitted he did not know of the existence of this case law. When I asked him why he did not bring up
issues relating to the incompetence of my one attorney and the sexual affair my other attorney was having with
the trial judge.
Mr. Lerner told me that he was a team player and would not bring up any issue that would reflect badly on another
attorney or judge. In other words, is allegiance was to his other unethical and crooked attorneys and not to his
client. There was good reason for this and the reason became clear later. I brought a lawsuit against Mr. Lerner
for several causes of action and reported him to the Attorney Board of Professional Responsibility.
The “Board” refused to investigate him even though I presented documented evidence of his theft, incompetence,
and corruption. When I took him to court he lied to the court and in some cases the courts just dismissed the lawsuit
to cover for him. In one case the judge allowed the case to go to trial and Mr. Lerner, representing himself, did
such a bad job that it was obvious the jury was going to rule against him.
In my opinion, somewhere between 9 p.m. one night and 9 a.m. the next morning Mr. Lerner had one of his equally
crooked attorney friends contact the trial judge and have the case fixed. When we went to court the next day the
judge dismissed the jury and the lawsuit.
You ask why I didn’t catch on sooner. Under the circumstances it was almost impossible. I was in jail, my wife
had paid the checks and I didn’t keep abreast of what was being paid because I was totally involved in my criminal
defense and Mr. Lerner refused to provide me with copies of my account sheets or anything else.
I had to bring a lawsuit to against him to recover my own records and trial transcripts from him. Mr. Lerner is
a very smart man but his area of competence is not the law. In my opinion he is a con man who uses his position
to cheat his clients and steal from them. I believe the records I have in my possession will prove that in any
court of law where an honest judge will sit on the bench and a jury will be allowed to hear the facts.
I am not telling you that you should not use Mr. Lerner as an attorney. In my opinion if you need someone to fix
a case he has the right contacts and is unethical enough to do it. I only suggest that you consider what happened
to me before you make any decisions to hire him.
Also keep in mind that there will be no recourse if he screws you because, based on what I experienced, it is my
opinion that his other “team players” a/k/a attorneys and judges, will cover for him. If Mr. Lerner wishes to reply
I will be happy to publish his written statement if he will provide the documentary evidence to support his arguments,
i.e., invoices and time sheets to justify the amount of money he was paid.
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