Andrew Stolper, Shamed Ex-Federal Prosecutor in Santa Ana, Launches Litigation Finance Firm in Irvine with Convicted Former FBI Agent

Has this ever happened to you? Someone tells you about a person you have never heard of before, then a couple days later the same name pops up from a completely different source.

That happened to yours truly when it came to Santa Ana-based federal prosecutor Andrew Stolper.

Make that former prosecutor.

Addressing a lunchtime crowd at UC Irvine School of Law on Feb. 27, former Broadcom CFO William J. Ruehle mentioned Stolper's shameful conduct in the unsuccessful prosecution of Ruehle. I blogged about that presentation here:

William Ruehle, Ex-Broadcom CFO, Shares His Amazing Government Persecution Story at UCI

Stolper's name popped up a couple days later when Karen Hanover alleged to me shenanigans by the same prosecutor in the federal wire fraud and FBI spoofing cases against the Seal Beach real estate saleswoman.

Karen Elaine Hanover, Convicted FBI "Spoofer," Claims Hers Were Retaliatory Spoofs

My colleague R. Scott Moxley deals with the players on the ground at the Ronald Reagan federal courthouse in Santa Ana, including one Andrew Stolper, while I am usually confined to my journo-pod beneath the Weekly World HQ in Costa Messy.

However, I am familiar with, and have mentioned here in Navel Gazing, some of the federal judges at The Gipper, as we call it. Among them: Judge Cormac Carney, who became so incensed over Stolper's conduct in the 2009 Broadcom case that he forbid the prosecutor from speaking, leaving those less familiar with the details to run what quickly became a stinker for the U.S. Attorney's office.

Stolper's conduct would supposedly lead to a probe of his work by his superiors, although the Corona del Mar resident says in a new Reuters story that he was eventually cleared by brass. The main point of that story, however, is Stolper having finally left the U.S. Attorney's office in Santa Ana.

Actually, Hanover tipped me to this development, which she said she heard from her attorney, shortly after I posted on her case March 4. Unfortunately, I could get no confirmation out of the U.S. Attorney nor was I able to reach Stolper.

After a decade as a federal prosecutor, he has "teamed up with an ex-FBI agent to form a private equity firm specializing in litigation finance, a growing business in the legal industry," reports Reuters. Irvine-based Crux Capital, which launched on Monday, will have hedge funds and other investors essentially betting on the outcomes of commercial litigation buy providing money to litigants in exchange for cuts of any settlements or verdicts.

Peter Norell, Stolper's partner and a former FBI agent, pleaded guilty in 2010 to illegally accessing Bureau records and threatening to launch a criminal probe to help an acquaintance collect a debt. That's about the same time he left the Bureau.

Follow OC Weekly on Twitter @ocweekly or on Facebook!