It’s hard to pull off a bigger con than to pose as Donald Bren, especially when you don’t look a bit like OC’s wealthiest man (see Mark Mueller’s story, this issue.) What the Insider is dying to know: How did the imposter obtain Bren’s IRS refund check? …
Santa Ana trial lawyer Dan Callahan (Callahan & Blaine) is representing the widow of a man killed earlier this year in a freak accident that made national news. Atlanta pharmaceutical salesman Robert Jones was jogging on a beach in Hilton Head, S.C., when he was fatally struck by a plane as it was crash-landing. Neither the pilot nor a passenger was hurt. Callahan says Jennifer Jones was referred to him by her father, an attorney who used to practice in California and knew of his firm. Callahan says he plans to sue in South Carolina, where “the law is favorable on a wrongful death case, in fact, even more favorable than California.” He ruled out suing in the pilot’s home state of Virginia, in Oregon, where the Lancair IV-P airplane was made, or in engine maker Teledyne’s home of Alabama: “We received very negative comments from everybody who has tried a case in Alabama against a hometown corporate defendant” …
Supe John Moorlach says Gov. Arnold should set up one more commission before he leaves office, this one to figure out how to put California into receivership. “Some adults have to run the checkbook of this state that are immune from special interests,” he told Leslie Dutton of Full Disclosure Network …
“After three brutal years in the housing business there are some signs of life,” says Dag Wilkinson. He left as chief legal officer of Hadi Makarechian’s Capital Pacific Holdings in 2008 after assisting in the Newport Beach-based development company’s debt workout. Now he has set up his own practice in Newport Center. He says clients include former CPH execs who have formed their own homebuilding companies and “are starting to see some traction in building and selling new homes in a much depleted competitive environment” …
Friends from the real estate and entertainment worlds will honor developer (and Eagle Scout) Don Koll at a Boy Scouts benefit Sept. 28 at the Irvine Marriott. The organizing committee includes Donald Bren, George Argyros, John Cushman III, Al Checchi, Deborah Norville, Mary Hart, Burt Sugarman, Robert Brunswick, Steve Layton, Phil Belling, Watty Watson, Bill Halford and Carl McLarand …
About 250 attended a memorial service for arts patron Arlene Cheng, who died in April at age 79. The ceremony was in the Irvine Barclay Theatre & Cheng Hall named after her and her husband George, who died last year. Speakers included UCI Chancellor Michael Drake, Irvine Mayor Sukhee Kang, retired Irvine Co. exec and founding Barclay chairman Dick Sim and Arlene’s eldest son, San Jose anesthesiologist Eugene Cheng.
