Appeal on attorney’s fees rejected

Tuesday, Feb. 1, 2005 | 9:34 a.m.

CARSON CITY -- A federal appeals court has rejected the claim of a Bulgarian national who wanted the government to pay his attorney fees after he was acquitted of being involved in a sham marriage to stay in this country.

The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld U.S. District Judge Roger Hunt of Las Vegas, who refused to award fees to the attorney for Zlatko Hristov, who was accused of paying $1,000 to a woman to marry him in October 1996, one month after he arrived in the United States.

Hristov was acquitted in November 2002 and under a federal law filed a claim for the government to pay his lawyer, Nicolette Glazer of Century City, Calif. The Hyde Amendment allows defendants who have been wrongfully prosecuted to sanction the government for prosecutorial misconduct.

Hristov, in filing his motion for attorney's fees, omitted two required pieces of information. He failed to provide an itemized statement of his legal fees and he failed to submit documentation to show that his net worth was less than $2 million.

Hunt denied the motion on its merits and ruled as moot the effort of Hristov to amend his motion to supply the missing information.

The appeals court, in a decision written by Judge D. W. Nelson on Thursday, said the failure to supply this information was a "misstep" but it "should not be a fatal one."

Still, in a footnote to the decision, Nelson wrote: "We affirm the District Court's denial on the merits in a separately filed memorandum disposition."

Hristov had sought $218,000 to pay his lawyer.