Attorney Geragos draws a crowd

One legal journal calls him one of the country's "marquee" lawyers.

And Los Angeles attorney Mark Geragos has the client list to back up the lofty description.

He's defended pop star Michael Jackson, Academy Award-winning actress Winona Ryder, ex-California Congressman Gary Condit and convicted wife-killer Scott Peterson.

Just last week, a federal judge in California removed him from the case of a defense contractor charged with fraud because he refused to submit to a background check that would have allowed him to see classified information.

Now, Geragos is in federal court here, defending a man who is charged with traveling overseas to have sex with young boys.

During the trial's opening yesterday, the courtroom was packed with spectators.

Most of them - some aspiring lawyers - were there to see Geragos.

One of Geragos' first major cases, in 1992, was defending Susan McDougal, a former business partner of Bill Clinton in the Whitewater land deal.

He won back-to-back state and federal-court jury-trial acquittals for McDougal after she had been convicted and imprisoned before Geragos represented her.

Geragos, 49, a lanky man with a taste for fine clothes, is no stranger to Philadelphia.

He is a graduate of Haverford College.

He was also one of the lead lawyers in a pair of federal class-action lawsuits against two life-insurance companies for not paying out on policies issued to Armenians that had been written before and during the purported genocide committed by the Turks against Armenians during World War I.

The two cases settled for over $37.5 million. A plaintiff in one of the cases was a Philadelphian, George Yacoubian. *