Jay Bybee, the federal judge and UNLV law professor who signed off on a series of Bush administration torture memos in 2002, could find himself in deep legal shit by year’s end.

Two days after CityLife asked how Bybee, the respected jurist who headed up the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel from 2001 to 2003, could have approved America’s torture of suspected terrorists, the same Spanish judge who went after former Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet opened a probe of the conduct of Bybee and other Bush administration lawyers.

Today, Cal Law reports Bybee has hired Maureen Mahoney of global heavyweight law firm Latham & Watkins to help him defend against the Spanish probe and, presumably, against any future charges he might face as a result of forthcoming internal Justice Department probe.

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