Law Firm Partner Wiechert Leaving to Start Own Practice

IRVINE — David W. Wiechert, who has represented such white-collar criminal defendants as a former Lincoln Savings & Loan president and a former Carl Karcher Enterprises executive, will leave his Irvine law firm next week to open his own practice.

Wiechert, a former federal prosecutor who has been a partner at the Irvine law firm of Layman, Jones & Dye since 1988, will continue to specialize in white-collar criminal defense work and also will handle trial work in civil business cases.

He currently is defending Los Angeles Police Detective Stephen W. Polak, one of six Los Angeles County narcotics officers accused of corruption in a case involving accusations of drug money skimming, beating drug dealers and planting cocaine on suspects. A jury acquitted the defendants of several charges but deadlocked on others. A retrial is scheduled for June.

Wiechert, 38, a University of Michigan Law School graduate, defended Raymond C. Fidel, a former president of the Irvine thrift, and Alvin DeShano, a former accounting director for the Carl’s Jr. fast-food chain.

He helped Fidel win a lenient probation term last month in federal court. Fidel pleaded guilty to two securities fraud charges and testified against the S&L;’s operator, Charles H. Keating Jr., at two trials in which Keating was convicted.

Wiechert won an acquittal for DeShano in a 1989 federal trial. DeShano had been accused of using inside information to trade Karcher Enterprises stock and avoid a $7,107 loss. He and others testified that he had planned to sell shares of the Anaheim company’s stock before the price fell drastically.