Micha Star Liberty 

Micha Star Liberty focuses her practice on representing people who have been sexually abused and suing their abusers. Right now, the cases that are keeping her busiest all target one man, former TV producer Eric Weinberg.

Liberty has filed 13 lawsuits against the former “Scrubs” writer and executive producer that detail assaults dating back to 1998. She actually represents 14 women, she said, because he assaulted two women on the same day, one after the other. Her lead case is C.D. v. Weinberg, 22STCV35370 (L.A. Super. Ct., filed Nov. 7, 2022).

She said Weinberg followed the same pattern for decades. He approached young women in public places and convinced them he was a photographer who wanted to photograph them because they were so beautiful. He invited them to his home, where the photo shoots would become increasingly risqué. “And then it would lead to full-on sexual assault, and many were raped,” Liberty said.

“The thing that kind of sent chills down my spine was when he was assaulting them, he would frequently take pictures of them,” Liberty said. “As he’s assaulting them, he’s telling these young women … ‘smile’ or whatever.”

Weinberg is in custody on 28 counts of assault and related charges. When his $5 million bail was revoked in October, Liberty was in the courtroom. “I always appear for my clients when there’s a companion criminal case.” People v. Weinberg, BA509407 (L.A. Super. Ct., filed Sept. 28, 2022).

At that hearing, the judge “made some pretty extraordinary findings,” she said, including that Weinberg is a serial rapist. Liberty hopes that when her civil cases go before juries, she’ll be able to bring up those findings.

She does have many other cases, including one against a Fresno doctor who she alleges digitally penetrated a five-year-old girl who came in for an exam needed to start school. Neither the girl nor her mother, who was in the exam room at the time, spoke English.

“You can’t believe that someone in a position of trust would engage in this kind of flagrant, in-your-face behavior… in front of a witness,” Liberty said.

In addition to litigating on behalf of assault survivors, Liberty advocates for them in the state Legislature. Currently, she is working to pass SB 646 by State Sen. Dave Cortese (D-San Jose). It would allow someone depicted in “illicit material” taken when they were a minor to sue any person or entity, including social media, that distributes the material, electronically or otherwise.

The bill passed the State Senate unanimously last month and is now pending in the Assembly.

But she also very much hopes that a legislative fix can be made to undo a California Supreme Court decision from August holding that the Unruh Civil Rights Act does not cover public schools. The result, she said, is that some schools are no longer bothering to investigate reports of assault. If true, that will make it “extraordinarily difficult for plaintiffs to prove up their case.”

— Don DeBenedictis