Kriti Mehrotra
When 74-year-old retired art dealer turned socialite Cliff Lambert suddenly disappeared from his Palm Springs, California, home in early December 2008, it left his loved ones shaken to the core. However, as explored in NBC’s ‘Dateline: The Prince, The Whiz Kid & The Millionaire,’ six individuals were arrested in connection with his murder within months, despite his body not being discovered until years later. Amongst them was David Replogle, a San Francisco, California-based attorney who utilized his decades of experience to help his co-conspirators commit a financially beneficial yet murderous scheme.
David Replogle Was Once a Renowned Litigation Attorney
It was on February 25, 1949, that David Replogle was reportedly born in California into a supportive home, allowing him always to pursue his passions with ease, regardless of their nature. Therefore, he eventually decided to study law with the aim of one day helping others with their ordeals, leading him to work hard, pass the bar exam, and earn his license to practice in 1977. He gradually climbed the industry ladder with a good reputation. Still, it’s imperative to note that he was suspended for brief periods in 1987 and 2009 for failing to pay his State Bar Association fees. He was reinstated within a few months each time.
David ultimately established his own litigation business, The Replogle Law Firm, at his base in San Francisco, California, where he proudly served as a practicing name partner for several decades. However, arguably his most notable case was in 2002, when he filed a sexual abuse lawsuit against financier Thomas White on behalf of two young men, including Daniel “Danny” Garcia. A separate suit with the same accusations was filed in federal court the next year by nearly two dozen additional young men and boys in Mexico, only for David to reportedly again handle all the litigation.
In the end, although Thomas vehemently maintained his innocence, he ultimately agreed to settle the state civil case by paying the two plaintiffs $500,000 for any alleged harm/trauma caused. Thus, when Danny came up with the idea of scamming and killing Cliff Lambert in 2008 after their brief romantic involvement went sour, he plotted the entire ordeal with a friend named Kaushal Niroula. Only then did the mastermind approach his former attorney, David, to ask him if he would forge power of attorney documents in exchange for financial gain, to which he reportedly agreed. Neither they nor their other consopurates imagined they’d be caught within months.
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David Replogle is Currently Serving a Life Term in Prison
According to records, David stood trial, was convicted, and sentenced to life in prison for his hand in Cliff’s murder back in 2010, but the verdict was overthrown in 2020 due to judicial misconduct. This decision stemmed from the revelation of an illegally recorded courtroom audio, which exposed that the presiding judge had made several biased and derogatory remarks about two of the six original defendants. As a result, the former attorney, who was placed on interim suspension after his conviction and then permanently disbarred in 2015, was offered a retrial, which he faced in the summer of 2022.
During David’s second trial, the prosecutors painted a clear picture of him as an active part of the 6-person team that defrauded Cliff Lambert and stabbed him to death on December 5, 2020. Since he was a licensed attorney at the time, they argued, he used his credentials to forge the power of attorney documents that enabled his conspirators to steal nearly $200,000 from his bank. Then, backed by a paper trail, they added that he even attempted to liquidate the retired art dealer-turned-socialite’s assets, including his home in Palm Springs and his substantial art collection.
David attempted to defend his case by asserting that he had acted under duress after being pressured by his conspirators, but to no avail. In August 2022, the jury found him guilty of 8 felony charges – first-degree murder, forgery, identity theft, attempted unlawful receipt of stolen goods, two counts of grand theft, and three counts of burglary. They also found the special circumstance allegation of murder for financial gain to be true. Thus, after all of David’s subsequent motions requesting another retrial were denied, he was finally sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole on July 18, 2025. So today, at the age of 76, he is incarcerated at the mixed-security Mule Creek State Prison in Ione, California, where he is expected to remain for the rest of his natural life.
