As judges discuss 'rule of law', here are 3 cases to watch with LA's new U.S. attorney
The legal community in Los Angeles is discussing attacks on the judiciary and law firms while staying silent about major changes at the U.S. Attorney's Office.
The federal judge whose son’s murder heightened judicial security nationwide told a virtual legal conference on Tuesday that people are using his name to have pizzas delivered to judges and their children as an intimidation tactic.
“What do these pizza deliveries mean?” U.S. District Judge Esther Salas said. “You’re saying to those judges, ‘You want to end up like Judge Salas?’ You want to end up like Judge Salas’ son?’”
Salas appeared on Zoom during Speak Up for Justice, organized by Los Angeles-based lawyer Paul Kiesel to respond to what a press release describes as escalating efforts “to intimidate judges, defund the courts, and politicize the judiciary.”
“We’ve had members of Congress calling for judges to be impeached for doing their jobs. We have had our leaders and people in positions of power and people with large social platforms calling us names. Calling us rogue judges. Calling us crazy, leftist, unconstitutional judges. Accusing us of being corrupt and partisan without any basis,” Salas said. “And now we are facing what appears to be a targeted strike against judges in the form of intimidation by unknown sources.”
Salas, who is based in Newark, New Jersey, was home with her husband on July 19, 2020, when their 20-year-old son, Daniel Anderl, answered the front door and was killed by a gunman who police believe targeted the family because Salas is a judge. A federal law enacted in Anderl’s name in 2022 bars companies and federal agencies from publicizing information about federal judges and their families such as home addresses and property records.
Salas on Tuesday urged lawyers and sitting judges to involve themselves in “the civics education movement,” and she asked “our leaders — Republicans, Democrats, independents — to be champions for justice, to speak out when the judiciary is being unfairly attacked.”
Salas also thanked “in advance the Department of Justice for what I know will be a fulsome investigation into these unprecedented attacks against the judiciary.”
Salas was one of five speakers during the seminar, which Kiesel said was observed by hundreds of lawyers and judges nationally.
Constitutional law scholar Erwin Chemerinsky, dean of the UC Berkeley School of Law, urged everyone to challenge “those things that are illegal and unconstitutional, so that we support the judges that will be adjudicating them.”
Retired U.S. District Judge Paul Grimm of the District of Maryland discussed the history of judicial independence and the Constitution before people who criticizes judges personally “simply because they disagreed with the ruling.”
“When unfair attacks are made against the judicial system or individual judges, lawyers and bar associations need to react properly but respectfully and in a non partisan fashion to explain why that attack was unjustified or unwarranted,” said Grimm, a professor at Duke University School of Law.
Ken Feinberg, an attorney and mediator, spoke of his work as administrator of the September 11 Victims Compensation Fund and said if people didn’t understand the rule of law, “We would not have the country we have today.”
Eileen Moore, a California state appellate justice in Santa Ana, spoke of the need to protect military veterans’ access to legal services by keeping federal Veterans Affairs employees “in our Veterans Treatment Court.”
No one discussed President Donald Trump’s executive orders against major law firms or the firms that have cut deals to avoid them. And no one discussed emerging issues in Los Angeles such as the Trump administration’s recent firing of an assistant U.S. attorney and former Democrat Congressional candidate who was prosecuting former Fatburger CEO Andrew Wiederhorn for tax crimes and making false statements related to $47 million in shareholder loans.
Kiesel told me this was intentional. I asked him why they didn’t discuss the firing or the fact that the criminal defense bar seems to be realizing that an effective way to advocate for their clients is to lobby Washington, D.C. to fire the case prosecutor.
“Needless to say, today’s webinar was not intended to address the ‘political’ question that you asked. No doubt, on a personal note, it is very troubling, but in the context of a webinar with sitting judicial officers it is simply not possible to address,” Kiesel wrote me
As lawyand judges continue to grapple with attacks on the judiciary, Los Angeles has a top federal prosecutor who may implement big changes.
Here here are three cases to watch under Bill Essayli, the new interim U.S. attorney for the Central District of California. Essayli is a Trump loyalist who worked as an assistant U.S. attorney in Riverside and was elected to the California State Assembly in 2022. He resigned his position to become the interim U.S. attorney.
United States v. Andrew Weiderhorn
The Los Angeles Times reported on March 29 that the Trump administration ordered the firing of Assistant U.S. Attorney Adam P. Schleifer, who was prosecuting the former Fatburger CEO Andrew Wiederhorn, after Wiederhorn's lawyers complained to DOJ officials in Washington that the case should be dismissed.
Schleifer was fired one hour after right-wing provocateur Laura Loomer shared three tweets from Schleifer in 2020 that criticized Trump, including one in which he wrote Trump “erodes our constitutional integrity every day with every lie and every act of heedless, narcissistic corruption.”
Loomer asked why Schleifer was still working for the U.S. Attorney’s Office and said he “supported the impeachment of President Trump and said he wanted to repeal Trump’s tax plan.”
“We need to purge the US Attorney’s office of all leftist Trump haters,” Loomer wrote.
Four days later, Loomer shared an MSNBC report about Schliefer’s firing on X and wrote, “More to come.”
As of now, there’s no indication prosecutors are going to move to dismiss Wiederhorn’s criminal charges.
Schliefer’s last filing was a 10-page opposition to a trial continuance on March 14. U.S. District Judge Wesley L. Hsu continued trial from July 15 to Jan. 20, 2026, during a hearing on April 4.
Wiederhorn attended the one-hour hearing with his lawyers Daniel Nowicki and Douglas Fuchs of Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher LLP. So did Assistant U.S. Attorney Kevin Reidy, who has been on the case since its inception.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Ben Balding replaced Schliefer on the case on April 8.
On April 9, Reidy replaced Schliefer as counsel of record for the United States in the Securities Exchange Commission’s case against Wiederhorn and FAT Brands, Inc.
Pre-trial motions in the criminal case are due on Aug. 29.
United States v. Alexander Smirnov
Former FBI informant Alexander Smirnov was sentenced to six years in prison in January for lying about President Joe Biden and his son Hunter accepting bribes. Prosecutors said Smirnov was influenced by Russian officials, and they repeatedly argued he was a risk to flee if allowed out of custody, including for emergency dental surgery.
Now Smirnov is appealing his sentence, and the U.S. Department of Justice has embraced a different stance and is asking for his release. Smirnov was prosecuted by Special Counsel David Weiss’ office after Weiss was appointed to investigate criminal allegations against Hunter Biden.
But Senior Assistant Special Counsels Leo Wise and Derek Hines are no longer on the case. David Friedman, an assistant U.S. attorney in Los Angeles, replaced them on April 10, then filed a joint stipulation with Smirnov’s lawyer calling for his release. The document cites Smirnov’s “chronic eye disease” and the medical treatment that Wise and Hines repeatedly rejected as grounds for his release.
Asked about the apparent change in position, Ciaran McEvoy, spokesman for the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Los Angeles, said the office has no comment.
Friedman and Smirnov’s lawyer David Chesnoff of Las Vegas, filed a joint motion with the 9th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals seeking Smirnov’s release, but Judges John B. Ownes and Roopali Desai rejected it and said they can try again if the trial court rejects their request.
U.S. District Judge Otis Wright II had not yet addressed the motion as of Wednesday.
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United States v. Trevor Kirk
Essayli is reviewing the case of former Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Deputy Trevor Kirk, whom a jury in February convicted of using excessive force when he pepper-sprayed a woman outside a supermarket in 2023.
This month, deputies from at least 20 sheriff’s stations in Los Angeles County didn’t participate in the annual Baker to Vegas marathon as a way of protesting Kirk’s convictions.
Nick Wilson, a spokesman for the Los Angeles Sheriff's Professional Association, told the TV news station ABC 7 that deputies “are asking themselves, ‘If I defend myself or the public, will I end up like Trevor? Facing federal charges and a 10-year prison sentence?’”
Kirk’s case also has drawn attention from the Resiliency Project, an advocacy group for first responders. The group posted a video on Instagram of Kirk crying in the courthouse after the verdict and hugging supporters inside the courthouse, including former Sheriff Alex Villanueva.
The video’s caption reads, “The aftermath of Robert Luna throwing his deputy under the bus for a level one use of force. This is a sad day for law enforcement and #trevorkirk.” A GoFundMe account for Kirk has raised $49,620 from 460 donors.
U.S. District Judge Stephen Wilson is scheduled to sentence Kirk on May 19, but the U.S. Attorney’s Office recently agreed to delay his sentencing to Aug. 18.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Eli Alcaraz filed a stipulation last week with Kirk’s attorneys that says Essayli “has requested time to review significant matters pending in the Office, including this matter.”
“The requested continuance would allow U.S. Attorney Essayli the opportunity to review the facts and circumstances of this case, including facts bearing on sentencing, and confer with the trial team in advance of the filing date for the United States’ sentencing position,” according to the filing.
The victim’s attorney objected to continuation in a motion filed on Monday that asks Wilson to sentence Kirk on May 19. The sentence had been scheduled for April 21 but was delayed.
“Victim J.H. wishes to move on with her life and potentially move out of state but is unable to until the proceedings are concluded,” according to the filing from attorney Christian Contreras. “Any further delay in these proceedings is preventing Victim J.H. to move forward with her life. Without an imposition of a sentence of Defendant Kirk, Victim J.H. cannot regain her sense of dignity.”
Judge Wilson said Wednesday they’ll discuss the continuation stipulation on April 21, when he’s to consider Kirk’s lawyers’ motion to set aside the verdict.
Prosecutors filed their opposition to the motion on March 17, two weeks before Essayli took office.
In a phone interview, the victim’s attorney Caree Harper told me she doesn’t believe Judge Wilson will set side the jury verdict.
“That’s a long shot and it’s not even in the ballpark,” Harper said.
She also said she has “confidence that the U.S. attorney still will do the right thing, which is to move forward with the sentencing of convicted felon former Deputy Trevor Kirk.”
She said Essayli’s review of the case “does reek that something’s in the air, but I am going to be cautiously optimistic that the rule of law is going to win the day.”
Court documents from the three cases are available below for paid subscribers. Your paid subscriptions make my work possible.