The BLT: The Blog of Legal Times

Former Prince George's County Executive Disbarred in D.C

As scandals continue to engulf the District of Columbia's local government, a chapter closed today in another political corruption case that shocked the region last year. Jack Johnson, the former county executive of Prince George's County, Md., was formally disbarred (PDF) this morning by the District of Columbia Court of Appeals.

Johnson is about five months into an 87-month jail sentence after pleading guilty last May to extortion and witness tampering charges. Johnson began his career as an attorney, earning his J.D. in 1975 and serving as the county's state's attorney before he was elected county executive in 2000. Federal agents raided his home and arrested him and his wife, former Prince George's County Councilwoman Leslie Johnson, on Nov. 12, 2010.

A member of the D.C. Bar since 1981, Johnson's membership was suspended in 2002 for non-payment of dues. According to a statement filed by the Office of Bar Counsel recommending disbarment, Johnson failed to notify bar counsel that he had pleaded guilty to a crime as required by bar rules. Disciplinary proceedings began in October as the criminal corruption case was proceeding against him in U.S. District Court for the District of Maryland.

D.C. Attorney Disbarred for Disbursing $250K in Escrow Account

The District of Columbia Court of Appeals ordered (PDF) the disbarment yesterday of Jesse Ingram, a Washington attorney accused of disbursing $250,000 in his escrow account without permission from the owner of those funds. Ingram consented to the disbarment, according to the order.

According to the Office of Bar Counsel's specification of charges (PDF), Ingram had a client negotiating a business transaction with a company based in Florida. As part of those negotiations, the Florida company wired $250,000 for Ingram to hold in his escrow account.

The money was wired to Ingram's escrow account in late April 2009. On May 1, according to bar counsel, Ingram began disbursing the funds at his client's request and without consent from the Florida company. In litigation that followed in U.S. District Court for the District of Maryland, Ingram maintained that he believed the money belonged to his client, but a judge ruled against him last April.

Former N.J. State Senator Disbarred in D.C. for Fraud Convictions

Wayne Bryant, a former New Jersey state senator convicted on federal fraud and bribery charges, was formally disbarred this morning by the District of Columbia Court of Appeals.

Although Bryant spent his career in New Jersey, both in public service and as an attorney with Zeller & Bryant in Cherry Hill, N.J., he had been a member of the D.C. Bar since 1978. In an order (PDF) released today, the appeals court found that Bryant had committed "crimes of moral turpitude" and should be disbarred.

Bryant was indicted in 2007 on charges of fraud, mail fraud and bribery, along with R. Michael Gallagher, the former dean of the School of Osteopathic Medicine of the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey. The two were accused of orchestrating a quid pro quo arrangement where Bryant would get a "low show" job at the school in exchange for helping to funnel state funds to the university.

The Morning Wrap

"Assembly-line Justice": A lawsuit in Michigan is challenging the system that assigns lawyers with indigent clients. NPR reports that the Justice Department called it a crisis.

Ponzi: A former Dewey & LeBoeuf partner filed a lawsuit in California, accusing firm leadership of misrepresenting the financial health of the firm to pursue agressive lateral hiring. The complaint likens it to a Ponzi scheme. Our sister publication, Am Law Daily, reports.

Child Sex Abuse: The Catholic church has been resisting efforts by state legislators to change the statute of limitations on sexual abuse cases. The New York Times reports that the church even hired lobbyists and PR firms in Colorado and New York to sway state legislators.

Doping: Seven-time Tour de France winner Lance Armstrong faces a fresh round of doping allegations that could strip him of his titles. The U.S. Anti-Doping Agency outlines the latest charges in a 15-page letter. The Washington Post reports.

Veteran D.C. Criminal Defense Attorney Receives Informal Admonition

Brian McDaniel, a long-time criminal defense attorney in Washington, was recently hit with a public disciplinary notice from the Office of Bar Counsel for failing to communicate with a client.

McDaniel, according to an informal admonition issued May 14, failed to alert a client in a civil case in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of North Carolina about how his case was proceeding and when it was ultimately dismissed. Bar Counsel Wallace Shipp Jr. wrote that while McDaniel's actions warranted the public notice, the office would not press charges.

Shipp's office also issued an informal admonition to one of McDaniel's co-counsel in the case, Craig Ricard, a local solo practitioner who used to be with McDaniel's firm. This marked the first time either attorney was the subject of a public disciplinary action. Reached by phone late Thursday, McDaniel declined to comment. Ricard, who joined the D.C. Bar in 2009, could not be reached.

Two Prosecutors in Stevens Case Cited for Professional Misconduct

Updated: 5:25 p.m.

A Justice Department internal investigation of the botched prosecution of Ted Stevens concluded two prosecutors committed reckless professional misconduct and should be sanctioned through forced time off without pay.

DOJ officials recommended Joseph Bottini be suspended without pay for 40 days and James Goeke be suspended for 15 days without pay. DOJ did not find that either assistant U.S. attorney acted intentionally to violate ethics rules, a finding that is contrary to a parallel criminal investigation. Bottini and Goeke, who were Alaska-based prosecutors at the time of the Stevens trial, have the option to appeal the misconduct finding to the Merit System Protection Board.

OPR concluded in a 672-page report the government violated its obligations under department policy and constitutional principles to disclose certain information to Stevens’s lawyers, Assistant Attorney General Ronald Weich said in a seven-page letter to Senate Judiciary Chairman Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) and House Judiciary Chairman Lamar Smith (R-Texas.)

“Our prosecutors and agents work hard to keep our country and communities safe and to ensure that defendants are brought to justice honorably and ethically,” Weich said in the letter, which accompanied the OPR report. “Nonetheless, when there is even a single lapse, we must, and we do, take it seriously.”

Leahy this afternoon released the full OPR report on the Senate Judiciary Committee's web site. The committee also posted responses from Bottini and Goeke to the proposed suspension. Leahy announced the committee will hold a hearing on June 6 to explore the discovery obligations of federal prosecutors. He said in a statement that "prosecutors must adhere without fail to the directive to seek justice for all parties, not just convictions."

At Judiciary Hearing, Ted Stevens Report Finds Support, Criticism

The Washington lawyer who led the criminal investigation of the Ted Stevens prosecution team continued today advocating for a change in how the U.S. Justice Department approaches its obligations to turn over favorable information to defense attorneys.

Henry "Hank" Schuelke III appeared for the second time on Capitol Hill to address his lengthy examination of the missteps in the Stevens case, which was dismissed in April 2009 amid allegations of government misconduct. Schuelke defended his report shortly before an attorney for a Stevens prosecutor attacked the propriety of the probe.

Schuelke, of Washington's Janis, Schuelke & Wechsler, expressed support for the elimination of the "materiality" requirement in criminal discovery--the notion that prosecutors can cling to information the government determines is not beneficial, or material, to the defense theory of a case.

"Human nature is such that good people, motivated by this adversarial desire to prevail, make those kinds of judgments," Schuelke said. "They should not."

Former Drinker Biddle Partner Disbarred for Falsifying D.C. Bar Application

The Maryland Court of Appeals disbarred Darlene Smith, a former partner in Drinker Biddle & Reath's Washington office, for altering documents as part of her application to the D.C. Bar, according to an opinion (PDF) released today.

The Maryland court issued an order disbarring Smith effective Feb. 2, but didn't publish an explanation for its decision until today.

Smith joined the firm's D.C. office as a partner in the labor and employment practice group in December 2008. Reached by phone this morning, Smith said that she is no longer practicing law but declined to comment further. Drinker spokesman John Byrne confirmed that Smith left the firm in January 2010. He declined to comment on the Maryland proceedings.

According to today’s opinion from the Maryland court, Smith was admitted to the Maryland State Bar in June 1997. She was admitted to practice before the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, but was never a member of the D.C. Bar.

In January 2009, Smith applied to join the D.C. Bar. Under local rules, Smith was allowed to practice in Washington federal court as long as she made certain disclosures that her practice was limited to the federal court and Maryland courts. She was also allowed to practice for a year in Washington under the supervision of a D.C. Bar-admitted attorney, assuming she applied to the D.C. Bar within 90 days of starting her practice in the District.

According to today’s opinion, Smith altered documents that she submitted with her application to make it seem like she had made the required statements about the limits of her practice when, in fact, she had not.

Ted Stevens Report: Bill Proposed to Create New Standard for Discovery Rules

Updated 5:40 p.m.

Lawmakers filed a new bill Thursday that would change discovery rules in federal criminal cases, requiring prosecutors to turn over any information that would be favorable to the defense as soon as possible – or face sanctions.

The timing of the bill's introduction wasn't arbitrary. Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) announced the Fairness in Disclosure Act of 2012 on the day a report was released showing prosecutorial misconduct in the criminal case against former Alaska Sen. Ted Stevens.

At a Capitol Hill press conference, Murkowski said the Department of Justice breached its duty. “Instead of justice being blind, in this case, justice was blindly ignored,” Murkowski said.

There are 97 different standards across the country for DOJ prosecutors when it comes to disclosing potentially exculpatory evidence, and the bill would create one national standard and would not make it optional to follow, Murkowski said.

Ted Stevens Report: Prosecutors Concealed Evidence

Updated 10:33 a.m.

The special prosecutor who examined the botched prosecution of Ted Stevens said he found evidence of willful concealment of information from the late Alaska senator's defense lawyers on at least three occasions, according to a lengthy investigation published today.

That evidence, special prosecutor Henry "Hank" Schuelke III said, would have aided Stevens' defense of public corruption charges in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. Two assistant U.S. attorneys, the report said, concealed information that went to the credibility of the government's chief witness.

The report found that prosecutors in the Stevens case never conducted or supervised a comprehensive review of information that the government was obligated to provide to the Alaska senator’s defense attorneys.

The 525-page report digs into a host of issues, including discovery obligations and alleged mismanagement of the case. Supervisors decided the government would “have to play our cards close to the vest” in the prosecution, according to the report.

Schuelke, appointed by a Washington federal trial judge to investigate the Justice Department’s missteps, said that not only was the review for exculpatory information not supervised, “the prosecutors themselves were unsupervised.”

DOJ’s Criminal Division leadership, Schuelke said in the report, “took a keen interest” in the indictment and prosecution of Stevens.

“Paradoxically, however, the role of the 'front office' in the management of the prosecution contributed to the failures of effective supervision of the trial team by the leadership of the Public Integrity Section,” the report said.

Schuelke wrote that an FBI agent, Mary Beth Kepner, did not prepare reports based on every interview she had with the government’s lead witness, Bill Allen, a friend of Stevens. Schuelke also reported that handwritten notes taken by prosecutors and two FBI agents contained significant exculpatory information that was never disclosed to Stevens’ defense lawyers.

“The investigation and prosecution of U.S. Senator Ted Stevens were permeated by the systematic concealment of significant exculpatory evidence which would have independently corroborated Senator Stevens’s defense and his testimony, and seriously damaged the testimony and credibility of the government’s key witness,” Schuelke said in the report.

The collapse of the Stevens case in 2009 marked a low point for the Justice Department’s Public Integrity Section and renewed national debate over the extent to which prosecutors are not playing fair with defense attorneys. Holder soon announced a series of DOJ reforms that were designed, he said, to minimize the chance of prosecutorial error. The department stepped up training for prosecutors and created a new position to focus on discovery issues.

Schuelke said his review of the botched prosecution included the examination of more than 128,000 documents. The Stevens prosecutors—William Welch II, Brenda Morris, Edward Sullivan, Joseph Bottini and James Goeke—cooperated in the probe. A sixth lawyer, Nicholas Marsh, committed suicide in 2010.

The Justice Department hasn’t yet published its internal ethics investigation conducted by the Office of Professional Responsibility. Still, lawyers for several Stevens prosecutors addressed the Schuelke report and the OPR investigation.

“Brenda Morris did not commit prosecutorial misconduct, as the report released today affirmatively states,” her lawyer, Hogan Lovells partner Chuck Rosenberg, said in a statement this morning. “Brenda is a woman of tremendous integrity and an exceptionally talented prosecutor—she was fully honest with the investigators and always hoped that one day this report would be made public so that the facts of her individual role would be known.”

Steptoe & Johnson partner Brian Heberlig, who represented Edward Sullivan, said in a statement that Schuelke “rightfully exonerated” Sullivan.

“Mr. Sullivan is a diligent attorney, with strong character and integrity, whose conduct comports with the Department’s highest ethical standards. Mr. Sullivan was rightfully exonerated by Mr. Schuelke and the Department’s Office of Professional Responsibility, and his vindication is evidenced by the fact that he continues to prosecute cases in the Criminal Division’s Public Integrity Section,” Heberlig said.

Attorney General Eric Holder Jr. said this month in testimony on Capitol Hill that the OPR report includes recommendations for sanctions. Holder did not name any prosecutor who may be sanctioned. He said any sanctions will take into account whether the ethics violation was isolated and how serious the lapse was.

“The Department has cooperated fully with Mr. Schuelke’s inquiry into the prosecution of former Senator Ted Stevens and provided information throughout the process," a Justice Department spokeswoman, Laura Sweeney, said in a statement. "The Department is in the process of making an independent assessment of the conduct and, to the extent it is appropriate and in accordance with the privacy laws, we will endeavor to make our findings public when that review is final.”