In the wake of the recent civil verdict which deemed someone liable, “Death At The Mansion: Rebecca Zahau” will re-examine the numerous theories surrounding this bizarre case. Meeting with experts, family members, witnesses, and never-before-interviewed law enforcement officials, Loni, Billy, and Paul create a case file with compelling new evidence which is strong enough to present to the San Diego Sheriff’s Office for review. From examining Rebecca’s final days to dissecting available case files, the series will bring a new perspective and tackle the many unanswered questions.
Zahau family attorney C. Keith Greer tells PEOPLE the family is now considering whether to file legal action against the San Diego County Sheriff, whose department insists that Zahau died at her own hands. Greer says he is also preparing to petition the medical examiner’s office to change the cause of death from suicide to homicide.
It has been a long legal battle for San Diego attorney Keith Greer who filed the wrongful death lawsuit on behalf of the family of Rebecca Zahau more than four years ago.
“Outgunned and outstaffed” is the way Greer Wednesday described standing up to a richly financed and resourced defense team, in trying to prove that Zahau was the victim of murder.
KUSI’s Sasha Foo was the first reporter to speak one-on-one with the plaintiffs’ attorney following the verdict.
In this excerpt, Greer talks candidly about his emotions as he heard the jury’s decision and why he thinks the San Diego County Sheriff’s Department should take another look at the case.
One of San Diego’s most compelling and controversial death investigations took another turn Wednesday when a San Diego Superior Court jury determined that Rebecca Zahau didn’t commit suicide at a Coronado mansion in 2011, and that her boyfriend’s brother is legally responsible for her death.
The jury found that Adam Shacknai must pay Zahau’s family $5 million for the loss of Zahau’s love and companionship, plus $167,000 for the loss of financial support she would have provided her mother and siblings.
The verdict rebukes the finding by the San Diego County Sheriff’s Department that Zahau — the then-girlfriend of millionaire pharmaceutical executive Jonah Schacknai — committed suicide, and ratified her family’s long contention that the 32-year-old surgical technician imbued with a strong Christian faith would never take her own life.
Immediately afterward, both the family lawyer, C. Keith Greer, and Zahau’s sister, Mary Zahau-Loehner, called on Sheriff Bill Gore to reopen the case and investigate further.
A wrongful-death lawsuit filed against the FBI by the sister of a man who abducted a San Diego teenager in 2013 after killing her mother and brother can move forward, a judge ruled Friday.
The lawsuit argues that FBI SWAT officers did not need to kill James Lee DiMaggio when they found him in an Idaho wilderness area with Hannah Anderson.
"It looked like it was really a hit squad and not a rescue squad," said C. Keith Greer, Attorney for Lora DiMaggio Robinson, sister of James DiMaggio. "There was lots of opportunity for the FBI to say 'hey freeze FBI'."
Greer told Fox 5, in drone video he's viewed DiMaggio never posed any threat.
"It showed Jim walking all over the campsite 30,40,50 yards away from Hannah and from where the rifle was," said Greer.
Agents had tracked DiMaggio and the El Capitan High School student to the Frank Church River of No Return Wilderness Area, and on August 10, 2013, they located the two. As they moved in, an FBI tactical agent shot and killed DiMaggio. He was shot six times: once in the head, once in the heart and four times in the arms and upper torso.
Take a luxurious cruise ship, handsome honeymooners, add sun-drenched ports of call, parties till dawn... and an ugly blood stain on the awning over the life boat deck, and you have the ingredients for a classic old-fashioned mystery like a dusty Agatha Christie.
But this one’s quite real and quite confounding. What could account for the disappearance before dawn of the young man from his locked stateroom? Where was the pretty young bride during the critical minutes in question? Who are the hell-raisers called The Russians and what part do they play in the puzzling affair?
A federal judge has granted preliminary approval of a settlement in a class action lawsuit against the North County Times by former newspaper carriers. District Judge Gonzalo P. Curiel granted preliminary approval in the 2008 class action on Oct. 17, granting $3.2 million to the class members.
The plaintiffs claimed NCT violated multiple California labor codes and routinely made deductions from the class members' wages. For each alleged complaint it received from its customers for, among other things, damaged papers, wet papers and allegedly undelivered papers, NCT would make deductions from their wages, up to $5 per complaint and "redelivery fees," according to the suit.
NCT routinely provided the class members with newspapers in excess of the number that was needed to complete their respective delivery routes, and then routinely made deductions for each extra newspaper and charged class members for their own mandatory subscription to the newspaper, the plaintiffs alleged.
The plaintiffs are represented by C. Keith Greer and Julie A. Lowell of Greer & Associates APC.
A settlement has been reached between a local gun range and its members. The $8 million dollar deal ends the class action lawsuit against the Front Sight Firearms Training Institute..
Some members filed a class action lawsuit in 2005, alleging among other things, racketeering, fraud and breach of contract. At issue, according to court documents, were people who purchased memberships between 1997 and 2003 and paid substantially higher prices than those who joined later.
Some members paid six figures for a membership and an acre of land in what was supposed to be a housing development at the site. They never received deeds to the land and the development has yet to materialize.
More than 190 members have filed to receive refunds estimated at between $6 and $7 million dollars according to attorney Keith Greer.