PinoyWatchDog.com Investigation Unearths Architects of Bander Fictitious Sex Scandal

1. PinoyWatchDog.com | Tanod Bayan Joel
Bander Sex Scandal
PinoyWatchDog.com Investigation Unearths Architects
of Bander Fictitious Sex Scandal
By Rene Villaroman with PWD Investigative Team
3/1/2012 James Beirne Scam 1

2. In 2005, Atty. Joel Bander began representing more than
40 underpaid workers being denied minimum wage and
overtime pay by the owner of Le Vien Homes, Inc. and
Taliavi Enterprises, two companies that owned about
half-a-dozen board-and-care and rest home facilities for
the elderly or mentally disadvantaged in Southern Los
Angeles County and Northern Orange County.
Immediately after it was known that these 40-odd clients
were being represented by Atty. Bander, Superior Court
files indicated that Bander began receiving reports of
intimidation and harassment from his underpaid clients.
In addition, the business owner, Vivian Fermin, allegedly
was using her ability to sponsor immigration petitions as
a bargaining chip to try to force the dismissal of the
underpaid workers‟ lawsuit.
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3. Le Vien Homes, Taliavi Enterprises and Vivian Fermin
were being represented by Fil-Am attorney. This
employer even arranged for another attorney, Scott
Glovsky, to represent “retracting” employees. Glovsky
would send letters of representation to Bander and
then just dismiss the employees‟ cases. “This is not the
job of a true worker‟s advocate,” Bander stated.
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4. Beirne Unethically Represented Employer and
Employees
However, a different attorney‟s office was the one that
made the greatest impact: the Law Office of James P.
Beirne. Atty. Bander told PinoyWatchDog.com that in
2006, a Bander client, one of the workers that filed the
lawsuit, received a call from a Beirne staff member, Lita
Brutas, saying, “How can you be suing your employer
when they are sponsoring you for your labor
certification?”
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5. The anomaly here was that Beirne was representing the
workers for their labor certification, but he was also
representing the owners of the business as counsel for
the lawsuit, a practice that is totally unethical. In
addition, Ms. Brutas was the same Beirne staff member
that purportedly arranged successive labor certification
petitions using fake employers in the case of Mr. Rey
Villarica (PinoyWatchDog.com, Nov. 26, 2011 issue).
“I was pretty incensed by the complete lack of ethics of
the Beirne Law Office,” Bander told
PinoyWatchDog.com. “They were co-presenting both the
employer and employee. Such a tactic was way beyond
ethical bounds.”
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6. Balita Media Owns Beirne Law Office
Bander recalls that when he recounted the incident to a
prominent Filipino-American he was immediately
informed, “Don‟t you know that Balita newspaper is the
real owner of that law office? Beirne does not own the
law office. He is not in charge. It is owned by the
newspaper owners, Anthony Allen and Luchie Mendoza.
It is an open secret in the Filipino community.”
In retrospect, Bander had no idea how true that was.
But it made sense; any ethically managed law firm would
not call a client co-represented with an employer and
threaten them, in essence, choosing one client – the one
with more money – over the other.
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7. The Alleged Perpetrator
This dispute raged on, with false declarations of scared
employees tendered to the court by Attorney Glovsky and
the Fil-Am attorney. That situation has made those
employees no longer interested in the tens of thousands of
dollars of settlements; they just wanted to forget
everything. PinoyWatchDog.com does not have
information whether those two lawyers were aware that
Beirne was representing both employer and employees.
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8. But, Vivian Fermin, Balita Media, Beirne Law Office and
its non-lawyer owners, Anthony Allen and Luchie
Mendoza-Allen, still were not satisfied. As shown in an
accompanying story “How Bander‟s Enemies Set Him
Up for Fake Sex Scandal”, PinoyWatchDog.com‟s
investigation has determined that it was Vivian Fermin
who was behind Myrna Tiu‟s planning of the fictitious
„Christina San Jose‟ to malign Bander because he was
so successfully representing Fermin‟s workers who were
denied their rightful wages.
The PinoyWatchDog.com Investigative Team has spoken
with the confidential investigator hired by Bander to
investigate Myrna Tiu, who actually used her real name
in her communications with Bander and his staff in
Manila.
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9. Court filings in Manila contain detailed text message
exchanges between former Bander staffer, Lotis
Rosario, now a leading clerk at the Philippine Supreme
Court, and a purported brother of the fictitious „San Jose‟
seeking money to reveal was behind the setup, asked if
Bander is staying in the Discovery Suites in Ortigas.
“Hardly anyone knew where I was staying when I went to
Manila, for security concerns. I am still that way,” Bander
said. “I am still cannot be sure of Balita Media‟s plans to
harm me.”
When PinoyWatchDog.com asked the investigator how
could this person know where Bander was staying then?
He responded, “I learned that the brother of a Le Vein
homes staff member was the night manager of Discovery
Suites. It was a coincidence. That is how Fermin knew
where Bander used to stay. I could not find any other
reason this low-life trying to extort money from Bander
because Fermin didn‟t pay them to know where he was
3/1/2012 staying.” James Beirne Scam 9

10. The investigator reported: “I personally called Myrna Tiu
from the cell phone number she had provided Bander‟s
assistant. She admitted knowing Vivian Fermin. But once
I asked more she hung up the phone.” Digging
further, the investigator tracked Tiu to a small
agricultural bank in Lucena, Lagua, where he had some
good connections. He found the bank president who was
livid about being asked about Tiu, stating “she swindled
us for about a million pesos using false real estate
documents as collateral.”
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11. During 2006 Bander remained quiet regarding this fake
criminal matter, waiting for the investigation and criminal
process to play out. However, Fermin and Balita were just
feeling uneasy because they weren‟t getting any reaction
from Bander. On September 25, 2006, then Balita Editor
James Saspa, wrote Bander‟s office seeking comment on
the fake charges, even one reported in the newspaper
purportedly existing in Taguig that did not exist at all. It
has been reported that Saspa was an illegal alien at the
time he was Balita‟s Editor, and they also used an
immigration petition over his head to make him work
beyond the prescribed legal number of hours at low
wages.
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12. “I told them if they reported it I would sue for
defamation,” Bander revealed. No story ever ran in Balita
until Rhony Laigo traveled to Manila just to arrange for a
Hold Detention Order from the former corrupt Arroyo
administration. Laigo took this action after Bander
exposed Balita Media‟s pattern of false advertising
regarding the true circulation figures of Balita. But the
Bander versus Balita/Beirne dispute all started when
Beirne‟s law firm started calling Bander‟s clients to have
them withdraw from righteous wage claims.
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13. PinoyWatchDog.com will continue to inform the
community about the roots of this dispute, and await
Mr. Rhony Laigo‟s unsubstantiated denials without facts;
his made up stories and maniacal rants.
fin
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