PLACERVILLE, Calif. (AP) - Kidnapping victim Jaycee Dugard has hired a prominent Southern California lawyer to represent her and the two daughters she had with the man charged in her abduction and rape, according to new court papers.
Shawn Chapman Holley, 47, a Santa Monica attorney who has represented celebrities including actress Lindsey Lohan, rapper Snoop Dogg and boxer Mike Tyson, told an El Dorado County judge about her professional relationship with the trio on Monday.
Holley also informed Judge Douglas Phimister that her clients object to the judge's decision in February to appoint separate lawyers for the 29-year-old Dugard's daughters, ages 12 and 15. The girls were scheduled to meet their court-appointed lawyers on Tuesday, but Holley said she advised the girls not to go since she has been retained.
"I have advised my clients of their right to have independent counsel and each of them has waived this right and wishes for me to represent them," wrote Holley, who also served on O.J. Simpson's defense team when he was acquitted on charges of killing his wife.
The judge gave the girls their own lawyers because attorneys for Phillip Garrido and his wife, Nancy, are seeking access to videotaped interviews authorities conducted with them and Dugard, as well as certain photographs of the girls.
Prosecutors said Dugard objected to having that evidence turned over to the defense, but Phimister said during a Feb. 26 hearing that he could not assume that mother and daughters shared the same feelings about the issue or the Garridos.
Holley reassured the judge in her court filing that all three agree they do not want any contact with the couple, who have been jailed since their arrests in late August, or their lawyers. Dugard and the girls also do not want any confidential information about them, such as their address or photographs of the girls, to be disclosed to the defense, she said.
Holley is seeking a protective order to that effect from the judge. The next hearing in the case is scheduled for April 15.
The law firm where Holley is a partner - Kinsella, Weitman, Iser, Kump and Aldisert - also is representing Dugard and her family in their potential lawsuits against the state of California.
Another partner at her firm filed claims in January indicating Dugard, her children and her mother were seeking damages for lapses parole officials allegedly made in supervising Phillip Garrido, a convicted rapist. He had been out of prison for two years when Dugard was snatched outside her South Lake Tahoe home at age 11.
Phillip and Nancy Garrido have been charged with kidnapping Dugard in 1991 and holding her captive for 18 years at their Antioch home, where prosecutors said she lived with two daughters fathered by Phillip Garrido in a ramshackle backyard compound.
They have pleaded not guilty.
Dugard resurfaced last summer after Phillip Garrido, a convicted rapist, brought her and the girls with him to a meeting with his parole officer, who did not know he had a young woman and two girls living at his home. Before then, the daughters were raised to think Dugard was their older sister, according to court documents.