Pride Goeth
The District of Columbia Court of Appeals has imposed identical discipline based on sanctions ordered in Texas
On consideration of the two separate certified orders from the state of Texas wherein respondent admitted that in one case he threatened a party with civil or criminal action to gain an advantage in a civil matter and in another matter he threatened an individual with physical violence and respondent further agreed that his cumulative discipline for these two matters should be an eighteen-month suspension from the practice of law, all but three months stayed, followed by a fifteen-month period of probation subject to the conditions imposed by the state of Texas; this court’s March 25, 2019, order suspending respondent and directing him to show cause why reciprocal discipline should not be imposed; and the statement of Disciplinary Counsel regarding reciprocal discipline; and it appearing that respondent failed to file a response to this court’s show cause order; and it further appearing that respondent filed his D.C. Bar R. XI, §14(g) affidavit on April 22, 2019, it is
ORDERED that Jason Lee Van Dyke is hereby suspended from the practice of law in the District of Columbia for a period of eighteen months, nunc pro tunc to April 22, 2019, all but three months of the suspension stayed, followed by a fifteen month period of probation subject to the conditions imposed by the state of Texas.
Texas Lawyer reported on the case
A Texas attorney associated with self-described “Western chauvinist” group Proud Boys, who has a history of threatening critics and legal opponents, was suspended and fined by the state’s disciplinary board one week before he was supposed to face a misdemeanor charge of filing a false police report claiming some of his guns were stolen.
Jason Lee Van Dyke of Crossroads, Texas, was scheduled to go before a Texas Disciplinary Commission hearing Friday concerning violent threats he made against another lawyer when he agreed to a consent judgment of a one-year suspension, but he will only be suspended from active practice for three months.
The remaining nine months will be probationary, contingent upon his compliance with terms including that he seek mental health treatment and pays $7,500 in fees and expenses.
Van Dyke was already under a six-month suspension that the commission ordered in December after finding he “threatened to present criminal or disciplinary charges solely to gain an advantage in connection with the civil matter” he was handling.
Van Dyke’s recent disciplinary action stems from a nasty dispute with Tom Retzlaff, a Phoenix retiree who is the defendant in a $100 million defamation lawsuit Van Dyke filed in federal court.
Retzlaff, who describes himself as lifelong Republican and avid supporter of President Donald Trump, got crossways with Van Dyke when he contacted the Victoria County District Attorney’s Office in 2017 to express concerns about Van Dyke’s employment and his connections with Proud Boys.
Proud Boys, the male-only organization founded by Canadian Gavin McInnes, has been accused of advocating violence in pursuit of its political and social activism. According to a report from a Washington state sheriff’s department last year, the Federal Bureau of Investigation “characterizes the Proud Boys as an extremist group with ties to white nationalism.”
(Mike Frisch)