Farmer Amos Miller has fired his attorney and is now looking to represent him at Prairie Star National, an advocacy group that may not include licensed attorneys.
But because it’s not clear whether the federal judge who tried to enforce food safety regulations on Miller and Miller’s Organic Farm will go along with it. The most recent civil lawsuits have been running since 2019 and changing his lawyers is a tactic Miller has already used.
Dallas attorney Steven LaFuente filed a motion to resign as an attorney for Miller and Miller’s Organic Farm in the Eastern District Court of Pennsylvania for “good reasons”.
The most significant sanction Miller faces is a $ 250,000 fine for violating the court. Judge Edward G. Smith kept this collection in abeyance after LaFuente reported on the progress Miller had made in meeting various food safety requirements.
LaFuente learned October 1 that Prairie Star National of Port Orchard, WA, would represent Miller and Miller’s Organic Farm.
LaFuente said he then contacted Prairie Star National and asked to speak to the attorney who will be filing the legal counsel request. Movant suspected at the time that the advocacy group did not include licensed lawyers. “
On October 4, LaFuente received a fax from Amos Miller saying that he and the farm “are now represented by National Star Prairie” and that the Dallas attorney would be fired.
LaFuente was working to find a qualified neutral party to do an inventory on Miller’s Organic Farm so Miller can begin liquidating arrested products. The USDA’s Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) has not approved any proposed candidates.
In his resignation request, LaFuente said he had “experience with stakeholders like Prairie Star National and. . . suspects that the defendants have chosen a strategy that movant does not want to contact. “
All of this leaves the US District Court for Eastern Pennsylvania in trouble. Judge Edward G. Smith has ordered the parties to appear in his Easton, PA court on November 1 at 1 p.m. His order recognizes the “dispute over the legal representation of the accused, which arises from the communication between the lawyer of the accused and a third party”.
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