As a lawyer he found his way to L.A. and began practicing here. The majority of his clients were violent predicate felons who, by the account of most, were guilty as hell of the charges brought against them. Despite that fact, Nash did very well getting them off, usually by claiming every imaginable brand of police impropriety. His favored courtroom tactic was to put the arresting officers on trial.

From 2000 to 2006 he expanded his L.A. practice to cover civil lawsuits against cops. The word around the courthouse was he was not above buying false testimony, although, in all fairness, that claim had never been proven.

If there is such a thing as karmic payback, it made a heartfelt appearance in 2006 when one of Nash’s partners turned him into our bunco squad for embezzling from his own law firm to support an over-the-top Hollywood lifestyle. Needless to say, a lot of overtime went into that investigation, but not one of the cops working it put in for even an hour. The case quickly rose to the level of divine providence.

This magnificent investigatory effort resulted in a three-year sentence for Nixon Nash at Corcoran State Prison in Central California and the stripping of his law license. However, because of “good time” served, he got out in eighteen months.

While in jail, Nash wrote a book about his adventures taking corrupt cops to court. The book was titled Vigilante. It won the Prison PEN Award, was published in New York, and became a national best-seller. With its success, Nash arose like a battered zombie in a George Romero film. Nash optioned the rights to Vigilante TV to a local TV station in his hometown of Miami and continued his crusade against local law enforcement there, only now it was playing to a much larger audience. The guy was like a fungus you couldn’t kill.