UPDATED: Bar president-elect sued as part of investors’ case against Sigillito

Updates with additional responses.

A federal lawsuit over losses in an investment scheme has been broadened to include Missouri Bar President-Elect Lynn Ann Vogel, her attorney husband, Paul Vogel, the law firms of Spencer Fane Britt & Browne and Helfrey Neiers & Jones and many other defendants.

Phil Rosemann sued Clayton lawyer and cleric Martin Sigillito last year, alleging he violated federal racketeering laws in collecting investors’ money, ostensibly to pass on to Englishman Derek Smith to purchase English property rights and then sell them at a high profit. Rosemann claims he alone lost $18 million, and about six-dozen other plaintiffs also are part of that suit.

Sigillito has been under federal investigation, had his law office raided and property seized, but he hasn’t been charged. His attorneys have predicted he will be vindicated.

Today, Rosemann’s attorney, Sebastian Rucci, filed the amended suit in court. The 59-page complaint includes a host of defendants, from the Vogels to law firms, a bank and other people that allegedly have some connection to the English property deals or the money intended for them.

Mitch Stevens, an attorney for the Vogels, says Lynn Ann Vogel was named in the suit because of her prominence with The Missouri Bar.

“This is just another misappropriation of her name,” he said. “When all the evidence is presented, the Vogels are going to prevail on this and be exonerated of any kind of impropriety.”

Stevens, of Jensen, Bartlett & Schelp in Clayton, said he was still reviewing the amended lawsuit.

The suit targets about $720,000 that was paid to Spencer Fane in May 2007. Firm chairman Michael Saunders today says the firm represented Sigillito in a civil lawsuit and that money was to settle that case.

He says it’s outrageous that the firm is named in this suit and that it will defend itself against the claims.

A message left at the Helfrey Neiers firm wasn’t immediately returned. That firm previously represented Sigillito in this case.

The case is Rosemann v. Sigillito, 4:10-cv-1165.