An Oro Valley couple locked in a legal dispute with Georgia Tech basketball coach Josh Pastner owe $42,083 in legal fees and costs for failing to comply with court orders, court documents show.
Pastner, a former Arizona Wildcats player and assistant coach, filed a lawsuit against Ron Bell and Jennifer Pendley in January, accusing the couple of attempted blackmail. The lawsuit says Bell and Pendley unsuccessfully tried to blackmail Pastner several times before making false and defamatory statements to the press. In February, the couple filed a counterclaim, saying that Pastner sexually assaulted Pendley once and groped her several other times.
Since the couple’s filing of the counterclaim, an alleged eyewitness to a groping incident recanted his statement, saying Bell and Pendley offered to pay him a portion of the settlement when they won the lawsuit. Another key piece of evidence, a T-shirt that Bell and Pendley claimed contained Pastner’s semen from the night of the alleged sexual assault, has also been called into question recently, after Bell sent a message to his former attorney saying that he never claimed the T-shirt had semen on it.
In September, Pima County Superior Court Judge Brendan Griffin ordered the couple to pay sanctions after they failed to comply with the discovery process, saying they would be responsible for reimbursing Pastner’s lawyers for fees and other costs associated with the discovery dispute.
Pastner’s attorneys, Scott Tompsett and Scott Palumbo, filed documents in court last week that detailed the time and money spent to defend the Georgia Tech coach during the dispute.
Palumbo, who is based in Phoenix, says he spent 43.4 hours working on the dispute and $159.75 to attend a hearing on the issue. At a rate of $350 per hour, Palumbo’s fees and costs for the dispute totaled $15,349.75.
Tompsett, who is based in Kansas City, Missouri, spent 65.4 hours working on the case, including travel time to get to Tucson for the hearing, and $1,270.68 in associated costs. Tompsett noted in the document that his original airfare to Tucson cost $587.96, but went up to $941.96 after Bell’s lawyer requested a last-minute rescheduling of the hearing. Tompsett, who is billing Pastner $375 per hour, said his total fees and costs in the dispute amounted to $26,733.18.
Pastner’s lawyers have met with Bell and Pendley’s lawyers in an effort to agree on the amount of fees and costs, but an agreement has not yet been reached, according to court documents.
During the September hearing, Pendley’s attorney, Brian Weinberger, told the court that he wanted the couple’s previous lawyer to pay the fees, saying that Bell and Pendley had been given ineffective representation. Weinberger indicated that he would be requesting a “culprit hearing” in an attempt to offset the cost of the sanctions to Tucson attorney, Paul Gattone. Gattone withdrew from the case in July, saying he had serious concerns that Bell and Pendley may have exaggerated or fabricated their claims against Pastner.
While no date has been set for the “culprit hearing,” a trial setting conference is scheduled for Thursday at 3 p.m.
