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Rick Gates’s Former Attorneys Sue Him for $369,000 Bill

The law firm said Gates retained it after a series of meetings beginning in November 2017. 

Rick Gates’s Former Attorneys Sue Him for $369,000 Bill
Rick Gates, former deputy campaign manager for Donald Trump, exits Federal Court in Washington, D.C., U.S. (Photographer: Andrew Harrer/Bloomberg)

(Bloomberg) -- Rick Gates, who was the government’s star witness in the trial of former Trump campaign chief Paul Manafort, was sued by his former lawyers for $369,000 that they claim he owes them.

Doar Rieck Kaley & Mack, a law firm that represented Gates in a criminal case filed by Special Counsel Robert Mueller, sued its former client in Manhattan federal court Wednesday.

The law firm said Gates retained it after a series of meetings beginning in November 2017. It withdrew with permission of the judge, Amy Berman Jackson, based on his failure to pay his legal bills and “a breakdown of the attorney-client relationship,” the firm said in its complaint. Gates has paid only $20,000 to Doar Rieck, according to the firm.

Gates’s current criminal lawyer, Thomas Green, didn’t immediately return voicemail and email messages seeking comment on the suit.

Gates, the former right-hand man to Manafort, pleaded guilty and agreed to cooperate with prosecutors. Manafort was convicted in August of tax fraud and bank fraud in a win for Mueller and his investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election. Manafort last month pleaded guilty to conspiring against the U.S. and agreed to cooperate with the Mueller probe.

The case is Doar Rieck Kaley & Mack v. Gates, 18-cv-09282, U.S. District Court, Southern District of New York (Manhattan).

To contact the reporter on this story: Bob Van Voris in federal court in Manhattan at rvanvoris@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: David Glovin at dglovin@bloomberg.net, Peter Jeffrey

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