Courting Clergy

A Louisiana Hearing Committee recommends permanent disbarment of a convicted former district attorney

The Committee is mindful that the decision to impose permanent disbarment relies upon the facts of each particular case and involves great discretion. In this case, a number of aggravating factors are present. The Respondent abused his position of public trust for his own personal financial benefit. He involved religious leaders who, wittingly or unwittingly, were corrupted into making choice legal referrals which, again, personally benefitted Respondent.

The Committee finds that two of the crimes for which Respondent was convicted are especially egregious from the perspective of the Rules of Professional Conduct. First, Respondent used his position as District Attorney, and the funds he had collected as contributions to his campaigns, to host social functions for religious leaders, and to make contributions to their budgets, for the purpose of receiving lucrative client referrals from the ministers that Respondent, or his law firm, or their affiliates could profitably handle. Second. Respondent used his position as District Attorney to collect hundreds of thousands of dollars over twenty years from the St. Tammany Hospital Board and kept what should have been public money for himself.

These actions and practices reflect disgracefully upon the legal profession, the institutions of justice, and the public office held by Respondent. In mitigation, the Committee has considered Respondent’s high repute as a police officer and his courageous actions in ending the terrible Essex rampage in which numerous policemen and civilians were killed. Respondent long served, without disciplinary issues, as the St. Tammany Parish District Attorney, though this fact weighs more heavily as an aggravating than a mitigating factor: he should have known better than to engage in the crimes for which he was convicted. It is also apparent that Respondent is experiencing serious health problems.

Weighing the mitigating factors against the aggravating factors, the Committee is of the unanimous opinion that Respondent should be permanently disbarred from the practice of law.

Nola.com noted the reference to the Essex rampage

Defense attorney Richard Simmons Jr. asked the judge to consider Reed’s lifetime in law enforcement, including a stint as a New Orleans police officer who put his life on the line making undercover drug buys and seeking out sniper Mark Essex during the 1973 Howard Johnson’s shooting rampage that brought the city to its knees.

(Mike Frisch)