Edward Neagu made a mistake letting go of Ms. Sullivan to hire this LA attorney, he might as well represent himself

 

Alleged molestor Edward Neagu's new attorney scheduled a motion to continue his preliminary hearing. Ms. Andrea Sullivan, Neagu's former attorney was court appointed. A private attorney is appointed when there are conflicts with the Humboldt Public Defender and Conflict Counsel offices.

The court clerk did an excellent job of details in court minutes with the all the key details that happened yesterday. Her court minutes always include relevant and pertinent information and she is one of the busiest clerks.

I am providing more details, live coverage and observations from covering Humboldt Superior Court for 12 years which includes many sex abuse and molestation cases each year.

I obtained the Ramey warrant for Neagu and provided details no one else had reported. 

Ms. Sullivan filed a substitution of attorney on 6/22 and gave Neagu's new attorney, new attorney Glendale based Sarkis Jacob Babachanian the discovery she was provided.

Neagu is going to regret hiring another attorney. Ms. Sullivan does not victim bash like smarmy criminal defense attorneys. She will tell her client the reality, try to resolve a case and if it goes to trial, do the best she can to mitigate her client's bad decision.

Neagu has retained Babachanian. Despite his smarmy, fake politeness in front of Humboldt Superior Court Judge Steward, the negative reviews by people who call him out are accurate. You could barely hear Babachanian. When he headed back to his seat, I wanted to ask him for his business card. I had no idea he was still talking to his client. The case had officially ended in court. My own experience with Babachanian when all I wanted to was ask him for was his business card and my watching him outside court is that he is rude, arrogant and the bad Google reviews are accurate. 

I don't use Mr. for certain local attorneys and Babachanian being from LA does not get him different treatment. Babachanian is not all that compared to the top LA lawyers I know, who respect me, my work and this is both in criminal and civil. Having a LA area address means nothing. Humboldt or LA, if you are good at what you do and making money, you don't act like a jerk and you don't need your client to inform you about changes in the law.

Babachanian claims 30 years of experience and a lawyer fresh out of law school knows the basics he wasted time on yesterday.

First, he addressed additional discovery. That is ongoing, especially in serious cases. Said he made an informal request. Then droned on that he could not be here, it was expensive and while there is sensitive information, if the People could drop it on evidence.com or similar digital evidence management system.

Both Judge Steward and Senior Deputy District Attorney Whitney Timm explained why that was not possible, including challenges for staff. Written motion was mentioned. Then Babachanian said he is going to file a 827 petition for victim which is a legal request to access juvenile records. If you read my post on the Ramey warrant, just in the excerpts it shows Neagu sought out vulnerable young victims.

Babachanian said his client told him about a Supreme Court ruling and he wanted to argue bail. Judge steward brought up people being entitled to notice. Ms. Timm said already bail already argued in front of another judge.

Judge Steward agreed and said he found no change in circumstances and that bail can be addressed after preliminary hearing.

Setting of preliminary hearing is scheduled for 7/30. Babachanian was authorized to appear via Zoom but has to be present for the preliminary hearing.