Carlo Croce may be back in court again — but this time, as a defendant.
Last month, Croce lost a defamation suit he filed against David Sanders, a Purdue researcher who was quoted in a 2017 New York Times story about allegations regarding Croce’s work. Croce had already lost an appeal of a related suit against the Times.
It turns out that Croce had not paid his attorneys — Kegler Brown Hill + Ritter, of Columbus, Ohio — in a number of those cases, to the tune of $923,445.51, according to a lawsuit filed against Croce last week in Franklin County Court.
The firm had been trying to compel Croce to pay their fees since June 2018, according to the complaint. In August 2018, according to the filing, Croce — a noted art collector — said he would obtain a credit line from Sotheby’s to cover the payment. Later that month, Kegler Brown withdrew as Croce’s attorneys.
Croce, who has had 10 papers retracted, has also sued The Ohio State University — also unsuccessfully — to force them to restore him as chair of the Department of Cancer Biology and Genetics.
Neither Croce nor Charles Cooper, the attorney representing Kegler Brown, immediately responded to requests for comment.
Update, 1700 UTC, 6/26/20: Rex Elliott, Cooper’s partner, tells Retraction Watch that Croce
…has not offered to resolve this and we have had no settlement discussions.
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Should be easy for him to pay off…just cell one of his masterpiece paintings that he owns.
Croce — a noted art collector — said he would obtain a credit line from Sotheby’s to cover the payment
Sotheby’s art-historian advisors have the disadvantage that they are not self-taught connoisseurs.
Good. But if there was any justice the wrongfully-sued Prof. Sanders, and the cost incurred by Purdue in Croce’s frivolous suit, should also be compensated. One shouldn’t be saddled with legal costs for pointing out scientific fraud because the fraudster is litigous.
How do you let someone run up a tab of almost a million dollars?
Yeah that also called my attention. I can only think there were several legal proceeding running concurrently.
The NIH has let him run up a tab of $86 million.
Hard for me to sympathize with the lawyers. If you lie down with dogs…
The universe in its wisdom makes errors self-punishing. If you, as a lawyer, represent someone accused, essentially, of being a con, one should practice “safe law” and never “believe” the client as those con skills may be in play against you. Such reckless trust, who would hire lawyers so completely fool-able?