Office Party Encounter Leads To Consent Disbarment

The Pennsylvania Supreme Court has accepted the consent disbarment of a convicted attorney.

The Norristown Times Herald reported the story

On Nov. 24, 2014, Kerns pleaded no contest in Montgomery County Court to one misdemeanor count of indecent assault, and Senior Judge John Braxton sentenced him to two years’ probation in connection with the alleged contact he had with a onetime co-worker after a work celebration in Whitpain for the law firm at which he was once a partner.

 By pleading no contest, Kerns did not admit to the assault, but acknowledged that prosecutors with the state Office of Attorney General had enough evidence to convict him.

 Under state law, a no contest plea is treated as a conviction.

 Other charges, including aggravated assault, additional counts of indecent assault and one count of simple assault were withdrawn at that time against Kerns in connection with the Oct. 25, 2013, incident.

 After a separate hearing in May 2015, Braxton deemed Kerns to be a sexually violent predator. Under that classification Kerns must register his address with the state police, quarterly, for the rest of his life and attend counseling sessions.

 The prosecution of Kerns began in November 2013, when he was arrested and charged by the Montgomery County District Attorney’s Office with allegedly drugging and raping a woman, a onetime employee of his then Blue Bell law firm, after a work party. However, in March 2014, defense lawyer Brian J. McMonagle enlisted two experts to review the victim’s blood reports and found they had been read incorrectly by prosecutors. The reports indicated there had been no trace of drugs in the victim’s blood, whereas prosecutors initially alleged the report indicated the victim had been drugged.

 The district attorney’s office subsequently withdrew the charges against Kerns in April 2014 and forwarded the investigation to the Pennsylvania Office of Attorney General, which then handled charges against Kerns. 

In May 2014, the lead charges of rape and sexual assault were dismissed against Kerns by a district judge at a preliminary hearing, leaving the lesser indecent assault charge to which Kerns later pleaded no contest. 

Kerns served as the chairman of the Republican Party in Montgomery County from 2008 until he resigned in November 2013.

He was admitted in 1972 and has been suspended since February 2015. (Mike Frisch)