There are some days when the salaciousness of news coverage only encourages further cynicism about those who are charged with holding the line on truth, justice and the American way. Connecticut has surely contributed its fair share of salacious stories recently, most recently a DOT official from Colebrook getting snared for attempting a hookup with a teen boy while on the taxpayers dime. But it’s not just the usual surprising suspects of fire chiefs, political or church officials generating the news these days. Even the lawyers are finding themselves ensnared in the traps of unintended consequences.
Today’s Courant offers up the latest in the Greenwich scandal of Robert Tate, the musical director of Christ Church. Tate has admitted of possessing child pornography, well over 200 images of children, some as young as 12, engaged in sexual acts. The plea deal must have led to details about how exactly the evidence that the FBI was looking for just disappeared. Apparently the Christ Church has a lawyer, Phillip Russell, who is alleged to have destroyed evidence and obstructed the child pornography investigation. From the Greenwich Times:
According to the indictment, Russell was acting as attorney for the church on Oct. 9 when he knowingly took a laptop owned by Robert F. Tate, the church’s longtime music director, and “corruptly altered, destroyed, mutilated and concealed it” to prevent federal investigators from retrieving child pornography.
Federal authorities had begun to investigate Tate three days before, on Oct. 6, according to the indictment.
An employee of the church was using Tate’s laptop and discovered some of the pornography, including photos of naked boys, according to the indictment. Church officials sealed and wrapped Tate’s laptop, treating it as evidence, according to the indictment. But on Oct. 9, Russell took the computer, the indictment alleges.
Also on Oct. 9 church officials and Russell allowed Tate to pack a bag, in which he put some of the child pornography and discarded the bag, according to the indictment.
Tate resigned and Russell and church officials arranged for him to travel to California, where he was ultimately arrested, according to the indictment. (Source: Greenwich Times)
The Courant poses the intriguing question of how the Sarbanes-Oxley Act has the unintended consequence of expanding the ability to prosecute a crime, not on whether evidence is destroyed after and investigation has started, but in the days preceding an investigation because the investigation is likely. From the Courant:
Russell was charged under the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, which Congress passed in 2002 after a wave of corporate accounting scandals to make it easier to prosecute such cases. He faces up to 40 years in prison if convicted.
“The case will test the meaning of those new provisions,” Gillers said.
The law, which was aimed at cases involving corporate document shredding, made it easier to prosecute obstruction of justice by requiring only that an investigation was foreseeable rather than already pending. Prosecutors also no longer have to show the defendant acted with corrupt intent to keep evidence from investigators, experts say.
While legal experts agree that lawyers can’t destroy evidence, they are concerned that prosecutors’ use of Sarbanes-Oxley will pressure defense attorneys to betray their clients’ confidences and report potential evidence to authorities or risk prosecution themselves.
“The most troubling aspect is it tries to make lawyers shills or hand maidens for police and government investigators,” said Jon Schoenhorn, president of the Connecticut Criminal Defense Lawyers Association.
Future cases could be murkier than child pornography, involving bank records or other documents and items that might incriminate a client in a future investigation, experts say. (Source: Harftord Courant)
From reading the comments on this site, it appears that Norwalk is not immune to the concept of lawyers destroying evidence that could be used in an investigation of computers, children and pornography. The alleged Pagano Seafood incident involves a lawyer or two, seizing a computer to erase information before it can be examined by the Police after a parent whose child was in the Weed and Seed program complained. This story keeps surfacing due to the upcoming Mayoral election and the presumed rematch between Richard Moccia and Alex Knopp. Knopp, it seems, will likely find himself embroiled in several cover up investigations leading one to question whether the political winds will steer the Donkey tribe to select a more suitable candidate, or punt.
Speaking of donkeys, the Internet’s tubes were overwhlemed by the details of one lonely man who was arrested in a hotel room along with a donkey: The details:
Supt John McBrearty told the court that Mr McCarney who had signed in as “ Mr Shrek†had told hotel staff that the donkey was a family pet and that this was believed by the hotel receptionist who the supt said was “young and hadn’t great English.â€
Receptionist Irina Legova said that Mr McCarney had told her that the donkey was a breed of “super rabbit†which he was bringing to a pet fair in the city. The court was told that the donkey went berserk in the middle of the night and ran amok in the hotel corridor, forcing hotel staff to call the gardai.
McCarney was found in the room wearing a latex suit and handcuffs, the key to which the donkey is believed to have swallowed. He was removed to Mill St station after which it is said he was the subject of much mirth among the lads next door in The Galway Arms.
The long history of the laws in the UK apparently was prepared for this, and Mr. McCarney was charged under the Unlawful Accommodation of Donkeys Act 1837. This story will live forever on the Internet, much to the misfortune of Mr. McCarney.
Phillip Russel, the successful and well known criminal defense attorney will test the reaches of the Sarbanes-Oxley, while others may find themselves under federal indictments of the unintended sort. But for the rest of us, computers are turning out to be a conundrum of productivity and accountability. And the old ways of covering up misdeeds seem to no longer apply.
It’s been a few days when each of the Board of Ed officials were sent an email requesting a response to the 32 34 unanswered questions about the BOE budget. Not a single one has bothered to reply yet. Caveat Emptor.
Source: Greenwich Times, Lawyer indicted in child porn case: Feds charge Russell took church computer, destroyed evidence, By Martin B. Cassidy, February 17 2007
Source: Harftord Courant, Lawyer’s arrest sparks worries of corporate law implications, AP, March 4, 2007
