The Washington lawyer appointed to investigate alleged prosecutorial misconduct in the Ted Stevens case received almost a million dollars for his work since April 2009, the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts reported this morning.
The $981,842 payment to Henry “Hank” Schuelke III and his law firm, Janis, Schuelke & Wechsler, is based on compensation at $200 per hour, up until March 2012. The total amount includes reimbursed expenses. The administrative office did not immediately identify the law firm’s expenses.
With Janis attorney William Shields, Schuelke submitted a 525-page report about the collapse of the Stevens case, closely tracking management issues and prosecutorial discovery obligations. Schuelke was appointed in April 2009, when the Justice Department sought the dismissal of the Stevens case.
Schuelke and Shields determined that two assistant U.S. attorneys intentionally withheld evidence from Stevens’ lawyers at Williams & Connolly. Lawyers for the two prosecutors deny the allegation.
The presiding trial judge, Emmet Sullivan of Washington federal district court, described the Schuelke report in a recent ruling as an “exhaustive investigation.” Sullivan refused to keep the report confidential, rejecting requests from four Stevens prosecutors to not publish the document.
Schuelke is scheduled to testify Wednesday morning before the Senate Judiciary Committee about the report. He said in his report, released on March 15, that the Stevens prosecutors cooperated in the probe.
For many years, Schuelke has served as special counsel to the D.C. Commission on Judicial Disability and Tenure. That work has included investigating complaints of judicial misconduct in local courts. Janis, Schuelke & Wechsler has received tens of thousands of dollars for this work, commission records show.
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