Prosecutor Prosecuted
A hearing is scheduled to begin tomorrow on ethics charges brought by the District of Columbia Office of Disciplinary Counsel as reported by NBC News Washington
In a court filing this week, one-time D.C. Assistant U.S. Attorney Jennifer Kerkhoff Muyskens denied any wrongdoing while prosecuting hundreds of protesters arrested in D.C. during Donald Trump’s 2017 inauguration.
In July, the D.C. Bar’s Board of Professional Responsibility alleged Kerkhoff Muyskens hid key video evidence and made false statements about video evidence at least 12 times to judges, defense attorneys and even internal investigators at the Department of Justice.
The D.C. Bar case could result in her losing her law license, but that could take years.
The D.C. ACLU’s Interim Legal Director Michael Perloff called the Kerkhoff Muyskens case “an egregious example of prosecutorial misconduct.”
On Jan. 20, 2017, hundreds of protesters took to D.C.’s streets to protest Trump’s inauguration. D.C. police mass arrested more than 200 people, and many were later indicted on felony rioting charges.
Alexei Wood, one of the arrested protesters who was acquitted at trial, said Kerkhoff Muyskens, “really had absolutely nothing [at trial]. And she just kept going and going and going and going.”
In court, not a single person was convicted, and dozens of cases were eventually dismissed.
In her denial filed Monday, Kerkhoff Muyskens, who is now an assistant U.S. attorney in Utah, acknowledged she was the prosecutor in the protest cases but denied any misconduct, paragraph by paragraph.
While she waits for the D.C. case to proceed, federal court records in Utah show she’s withdrawn or been replaced by another attorney in dozens of cases that just weeks ago she was prosecuting.
The records don’t currently show a single case she’s actively working on in Utah. The bulk of the removals came days after the D.C. ethics case was filed and started the same day the I-Team reached out to the U.S. attorney in Utah. That office is not commenting except to confirm she’s an employee.
The News4 I-Team found Utah lawyers are paying attention. At least one asked for a delay in sentencing of their client to review the ethics charges against Kerkhoff Muyskens. A judge granted it.
Attorneys in Utah told the I-Team other delay requests may soon follow.
Kerkhoff Muyskens and an attorney linked to her have not returned the I-Team’s repeated requests for comment.
Hearings are scheduled for March 11-14 and 24-28, 2025 and can only be accessed in real time at this link.
Unhelpfully, the Bar’s web page apparently provides no link to the Specification of Charges or Respondent’s Answer.
The charges are available elsewhere.
A Florida attorney has a prominent disclaimer on her web page
Attorney Jennifer “Jen” Kerkhoff of this law firm is NOT Jennifer Kerkhoff Muyskens of Utah who was a former federal prosecutor in D.C.
Our firm’s Ms. Jen Kerkhoff has never practiced law outside the State of Florida, has never been a Federal Prosecutor, and has never been charged with any type of ethical violation by any agency in any jurisdiction.
(Mike Frisch)