Attorney Suspended For Gross Misdemeanor And Other Misconduct

The Minnesota Supreme Court imposed a 60-day suspension followed by two-years of probation for an attorney’s conviction of a “gross misdemeanor” and other practice related misconduct.

TwinCities.com reported on 2011 criminal charges

A car was rocking side to side when officers responded to a report of a child being beaten in a car in St. Paul.

A 246-pound man was yelling, “I’m going to kill you!” and punching his 7-year-old son in the back of a Mercedes Benz, police saw. The boy was curled up on the floor, his arms covering his head.

Police tried to pull the man away, but the assault continued until they used a Taser on John N. Akwuba, according to a criminal complaint filed Tuesday and charging the 51-year-old with two felonies, domestic assault by strangulation and making terroristic threats.

Akwuba is a lawyer in St. Paul. Admitted to the Minnesota bar in 1997, he has no public discipline on record, according to the state’s Lawyers Professional Responsibility Board. He also has no criminal record in the state.

The complaint gives this account:

Officers were called to the Battle Creek neighborhood about 11 p.m. Saturday “on a report of a child being very badly beaten in the backseat of a car, and … there were two smaller children standing against a wall asking him to stop,” the complaint said.

Police saw “two very scared-looking young children,” ages 2 and 4, near a car parked in an open garage. They heard a man, identified as Akwuba, yelling obscenities and a child scream after they saw the man bring his fist down.

After officers ran to the car and got Akwuba away from the child, the man “resisted all attempts by officers to handcuff him,” the complaint said.

Paramedics brought the boy and his younger siblings to Regions Hospital, where their mother met them.

The boy had a large lump near his eye and a horizontal red mark across his throat.

Akwuba’s wife told police that he gets “angry and aggressive when he drinks alcohol,” the complaint said. Akwuba’s blood-alcohol concentration was 0.102 (the legal limit to drive in Minnesota is 0.08).

The boy reported his father hit him several times with his fists and an arm from a broken child safety seat. “He said his dad choked him and he was scared because he couldn’t breathe,” the complaint said.

A neighbor who called police told officers she saw Akwuba punch the child at least 30 times, it appeared he was striking the child in the head, and the child was screaming and crying while Akwuba yelled at him.

“Suddenly, she said, the child became quiet and she feared he might be dead,” the complaint said. “She called 911.”

Akwuba told police “they didn’t understand, that his son hit a girl and he was disciplining his child and teaching him.” He also said the boy “was a discipline problem who gets into fights.”

The man denied choking or hitting his son, “saying he was very angry and was waving his hands and arms in an animated manner,” the complaint said. He told police he’d had only two beers and was sorry he alarmed his neighbors with his yelling but believed it was the only way the boy would listen.

Akwuba, who was arrested at the time of the assault, was arrested again Tuesday on a warrant and booked into the Ramsey County jail. His wife could not be reached Tuesday for comment.

The court’s opinion does not disclose whether the conviction involved the above-reported incident. (Mike Frisch)