Lake Lawyer Admonished

The Arizona Presiding Disciplinary Judge admonished a non-member of the State Bar who had a previously unblemished 30 years of practice for conduct in the Kari Lake election challenge

On May 4, 2023, the Arizona Supreme Court issued an order sanctioning Mr. Olsen and his co-counsel — Bryan J. Blehm – for making “unequivocally false” representations in certain filings. The Court imposed a monetary sanction of $2,000.00 against Mr. Olsen and Mr. Blehm, explaining, in pertinent part:

In her Complaint, Lake set forth colorable claims, including ballot chain-of-custody claims, that were rejected following an evidentiary hearing in the trial court, and she duly but unsuccessfully (except for the laches issue)  challenged those rulings on appeal. However, she has repeatedly asserted that it is an “undisputed” fact that 35,563 ballots were added or “injected” at Runbeck, the third-party vendor. Not only is that allegation strongly disputed by the other parties, this Court concluded and expressly stated that the assertion was unsupported by the record, and nothing in Lake’s Motion for Leave to file a motion for reconsideration provides reason to revisit that issue. Thus, asserting that the alleged fact is “undisputed” is false; yet Lake continues to make that assertion in herMotion for Leave.

Lake’s Petition for Review stated that it was an “undisputed fact that 35,563 unaccounted for ballots were added to the total number of ballots at a third party processing facility.” In her Opposition to Motion for Sanctions and Motion for Leave, she repeats this contention, stating that “[t]he record indisputably reflects at least 35,563 Election Day early ballots, for which there is no record of delivery to Runbeck, were added at Runbeck, . . .” As the Court of Appeals observed, Lake’s argument was focused on one exhibit that included an estimate of the number of early ballot packets based on the number of trays and a different exhibit showing a precise count.
Although Lake may have permissibly argued that an inference could be made that some ballots were added, there is no evidence that 35,563 ballots were and, more to the point here, this was certainly disputed by the Respondents. The representation that this was an “undisputed fact” is therefore unequivocally false. Because Lake’s attorney has made false factual statements to the Court, we conclude that the extraordinary remedy of a sanction under ARCAP 25 is appropriate.

Sanction

Under the unique circumstances of this case, given the numerous mitigating factors, and because Mr. Olsen has already been penalized for the conduct at issue, the hearing panel concludes that an admonition is sufficient to achieve the recognized purposes of the attorney discipline system.

(Mike Frisch)