A former employee is fighting back against a lawsuit that alleges she stole from a local law firm, claiming in court filings that her former employer is retaliating against her collaboration with the Oregon State Bar.

Local attorney Anthony Albertazzi filed a lawsuit against Holly Davis, his former office manager, in March, alleging she’d stolen more than $315,000 from his office over seven years. Albertazzi and his wife, Carolyn Albertazzi, went to the Bend Police in August about the alleged theft. The case was investigated but not prosecuted.

In a special motion to strike the lawsuit filed last week, Davis’s attorney Phil Emerson claims Albertazzi’s lawsuit is an attempt to intimidate Davis, who is expected to testify against Albertazzi at an Oregon State Bar disciplinary hearing this June.

The motion states Davis and her husband deny the allegations.

In the motion, Emerson notes that Albertazzi created a separation agreement that waived claims against Davis and her husband. Emerson’s motion also argues that of the $315,000 Albertazzi claims Davis embezzled, $260,000 is beyond the statute of limitations..

Emerson describes the lawsuit as “riven with procedural and substantive flaws.”

Albertazzi did not return a call for comment.

“It is clearly not the work product of a practitioner whose objective is to win the lawsuit which it frames,” Emerson writes.

Instead, he alleges in his motion, the lawsuit is connected to what Davis is likely to testify to in the Oregon State Bar’s ethics prosecution against Albertazzi.

Albertazzi is due before the Oregon State Bar in June for allegedly violating three rules of professional conduct in his dealings with former Bend real estate broker Tami Sawyer. Sawyer in January pleaded guilty in federal court to mismanaging investor money. The bar complaint specifically relates to Sawyer’s relationship with Thomas Middleton Sr., for whom Albertazzi prepared a trust. Richard Braun, a Portland attorney representing Middleton’s three sons, brought the original complaint against Albertazzi to the state bar.

In 2006, Albertazzi created and executed estate documents, and in 2008 prepared the Middleton trust shortly before the man died by assisted suicide. Middleton invested at least $250,000 in Sawyer’s company Starboard LLC, and received monthly interest payments prior to his death. He also named Sawyer successor trustee, in charge of overseeing his trust after his death.

Middleton transferred his home to the trust before his death, and according to court documents and bank records, Sawyer sold the home for $202,000 in net proceeds, then put that money in Starboard’s bank account before transferring it to her other companies to pay personal and business debts.

After Middleton’s death, Albertazzi represented Sawyer in her capacity as trustee.

The bar complaint alleges the attorney should have known Sawyer’s interests were adverse to Middleton’s, and that Albertazzi knew she put the money in her own account and that she wasn’t properly managing trust assets.

Included with the motion to strike is a February email from Albertazzi to attorney Angela Lee, discussing Davis’ planned testimony in the bar trial about a meeting between Albertazzi and the Sawyers. In the email Albertazzi tells Lee that if Davis testifies, he’ll have to call Lee as a witness in his defense “regarding (Davis’) bias.” Lee wrote back that there was attorney-client privilege that would prevent her testifying.

In an affidavit, Davis writes that she was present on a telephone conference between Sawyer and Albertazzi.

“My memory of that meeting, and the substance of the conversations which took place there, together with other knowledge I gained about Mr. Albertazzi’s conduct of the Albertazzi Law Firm’s business, are the reasons for this lawsuit,” she wrote. “He knows what my testimony will be and this lawsuit is his attempt to either intimidate me into silence, generate the appearance of bias, or impugn my character.”

A pretrial conference about the lawsuit is scheduled for July 5.