Marilyn Bednarski is a partner at MBL Law. Marilyn began her career as a criminal defense lawyer in 1983 working with a death penalty defense lawyer in Los Angeles and joined the Federal Public Defender’s Office in Los Angeles in 1984. Her career has spanned public service and private practice. Marilyn is a graduate of Loyola Law School and earned her undergraduate degree in history and classical languages at UCLA.
Marilyn tries cases in state and federal courts and has tried over a hundred jury trials in federal court. She has been very successful, once winning six acquittals in a row from juries. Marilyn has also been very effective in negotiations of dismissals and reduction of charges and obtaining short sentences in all kinds of cases, including very complicated prosecutions for fraud, securities, the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, money laundering, tax evasion, exportation of defense technology as well as other types of serious cases such as those involving the RICO act, guns and drugs.
She is nationally known and enjoys a stellar reputation among attorneys, judges and clients for her creativity, tireless work ethic and dogged commitment to her clients. Among other passions besides work and family, Marilyn enjoys the outdoors, especially the mountains, and has traveled the world.
Additional Credentials
Super Lawyers 2007, 2009-2014
Top Women Attorneys in Southern California 2012-2014
Fellow, American College of Trial Lawyers
Faculty, National Criminal Defense College
Johnnie Cochran Award, Los Angeles Criminal Courts Bar Assoc. 2016
Significant Cases
In a state case charged as a first degree murder and additional counts of attempted murder in which her client faced a life without parole sentence, after aggressive defense investigation, motions practice, trial readiness and intensive negotiations, Marilyn obtained a disposition of involuntary manslaughter and release of her client after 4 years.
Marilyn obtained a complete jury acquittal in state court for her client who was accused of aggravated assault and the use of his car as a deadly weapon.
In a federal case initially charged as a Continuing Criminal Enterprise (CCE) , drug and money laundering conspiracy, after her aggressive defense investigation and filing a motion challenging the wiretap evidence in the case, Marilyn negotiated a disposition of three years prison saving her client from mandatory sentence of twenty years to life.
Marilyn obtained a sentence of probation with home detention for her client, at that time the best sentence ever imposed after a trial in a Foreign Corrupt Practices Act case. Her client was accused of bribery of a foreign official for the purpose of obtaining over $40 million dollars of contracts, tax evasion and money laundering.
Marilyn aggressively investigated the underlying facts of a laptop border search case and then convinced the federal judge at the suppression hearing that multiple agents’ testimony was wrong and her client was right, which judge then suppressed the evidence.
Marilyn aggressively investigated an alleged drug transaction and parole search, and successfully convinced the federal judge that multiple LAPD officers testimony was wrong, resulting in suppression of the evidence, and a plea bargain with a very lenient sentence.
In the last two years, Marilyn successfully won three federal writs of habeas corpus. One resulted in immediate release from custody, another resulted in a reduction of sentence from twenty years to ten years, and the third resulted in the court vacating a seven year sentence.
Marilyn successfully represented a man wrongfully convicted for 17 years and obtained a $8.3 million settlement from the City of Los Angeles.