Daum Conviction Affirmed

The United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit affirmed the conviction of a well-known D.C. criminal defense attorney but reversed the conviction of one of his investigator co-defendants as a result of the prosecutor’s Brady violation.

In multiple respects, these appeals concern the duties owed to the court by lawyers and their legal teams. Appellants are a criminal defense attorney and two legal investigators who were convicted in 2012 of breaching those duties by fabricating evidence and suborning perjury during a 2008 trial in which they represented another individual as defendant. Such conduct tears at the fabric of our system of laws.

But these appeals challenge prosecutorial misconduct that is likewise inimical to justice. Specifically, two Appellants argue for reversal of their convictions based on the Government’s undisputed breach of its obligation to timely turn over exculpatory evidence. See Brady v. Maryland, 373 U.S. 83 (1963). We agree with Appellant Daaiyah Pasha that but for the Brady deficiency, there is a reasonable probability of a different outcome in her case. We therefore direct a new trial for Daaiyah Pasha, with appropriate remedies to cure the damage caused by the Government’s delayed disclosure.

We do not, however, agree with Appellants Charles Daum and Iman Pasha on the challenges they raise, and so we affirm their convictions.

The attorney represented a defendant in a cocaine distribution trial and withdrew after the client threatened him.

Following a two-year investigation, the Government charged Daum, Iman, and Daaiyah with conspiracy to obstruct justice; Daum alone was also charged with witness tampering, fabricating evidence, and suborning perjury in the 2008 trial. The factual crux of the allegation was that Appellants had staged a photo shoot a few weeks before the trial to support a defense that key evidence attributed to Delante White actually belonged to his brother Jerome White.

The court rejected Daum’s claim of duress.

But as to the disclosure issue

The first two components of a Brady violation are certainly present here. A prosecutor in this case was personally present at an interview in which a witness gave a scene-of-the-crime account that, if credited, would contradict the identity of at least one of the Pasha Defendants in this case. The prosecutor waited over eight months until the eve of trial to reveal this information. As the District Court explained, this delay was inexcusable: At the moment the eyewitness said the two individuals who arrived at the photo shoot were a man and a woman (rather than two women), “counsel for the Government should have understood that as soon as they were finished talking with that gentleman, they had an obligation to give that information to the defense.”

The court found the late disclosure to be prejudicial to one of the two investigators.

The Washington Post reported that the case against Daum “rocked the District’s legal community.”

He was disbarred in the District of Columbia. (Mike Frisch)