|
|
4.11.2001 00:12
Experts fault
prosecutor for
showing tape
 Meanwhile, the second judge in two days has stepped down from the assignment to preside over the trials of Mayor Vincent A. Cianci Jr. and other defendants.
BY TRACY BRETON
Journal Staff Writer
PROVIDENCE
-- Three nationally renowned legal ethicists yesterday said that Richard Rose, the lead prosecutor in the federal Operation Plunder Dome investigation, clearly violated rules of confidentiality in showing an FBI undercover tape to two friends and his sister last summer at his house.
Geoffrey C. Hazard Jr., a University of Pennsylvania professor who drafted a handbook on the Model Rules of Professional Conduct for lawyers, says that Rose's conduct was so egregious that "it's certainly a ground for firing him" and "it may be considered obstruction of justice."
And Bruce A. Green, a former federal prosecutor who now teaches legal ethics at Fordham University School of Law, says that Rose should be disciplined for his lapse of judgment.
But Thomas Connell, a spokesman for U.S. Attorney Margaret E. Curran, said yesterday, "The U.S. Attorney has complete confidence in his [Rose's] abilities to carry the case forward" and that "absolutely," he would remain in charge of prosecuting Mayor Vincent A. Cianci Jr. and five others indicted on racketeering and other corruption charges.
Meanwhile -- as defense lawyers huddled privately yesterday to decide what they would do with the revelation about Rose -- the second judge in two days has stepped down from the assignment to preside over the trial of Cianci and the others indicted last week with him, including two top aides, Frank E. Corrente and Artin H. Coloian.
U.S. District Judge Mary M. Lisi recused herself without explanation yesterday, one day after she was assigned the case. A woman who answered the phone in Lisi's chambers said the judge had no comment.
On Monday, Judge Ronald R. Lagueux recused himself, also without saying why. Lagueux, in a sentencing hearing for a Plunder Dome defendant last year, said from the bench that Cianci ran the most corrupt administration in state history.
The case has now been assigned to Chief U.S. District Judge Ernest C. Torres, the only remaining federal judge who sits in Providence. If Torres also recuses himself, a judge would have to be brought in from out of state. Torres could not be reached for comment.
Before becoming a jurist in 1994, Lisi was chief disciplinary counsel for the Rhode Island Supreme Court. She began her career as a public defender, representing juvenile offenders in Family Court, then became director of the Office of Court Appointed Special Advocate, where she trained volunteers and provided legal representation to abused and neglected children in state custody. She also served on a special commission that investigated the RISDIC banking crisis.
THE U.S.
Attorney's office refused to comment yesterday on its policy regarding the handling of evidence, whether there were any departmental rules governing prosecutors taking evidence out of the office, or whether Rose's showing of the tape to others not connected to the case violated any rules.
In a letter to the court and defense lawyers Monday, the prosecutor disclosed that he had shown part of a secret FBI tape to his sister, his close friend, lawyer Casby Harrison III, and Harrison's wife, Mary Sylvia Harrison. According to Harrison, he and his wife dropped in on Rose last July while the prosecutor was reviewing a tape and then watched about 10 minutes of it with him.
Harrison has said he remembers seeing the government's star witness in Operation Plunder Dome, Antonio Freitas, and Corrente talking on the tape.
But he said he did not know if it was the same tape that was leaked to WJAR-Channel 10 and played on the air recently. That tape purportedly shows Corrente in his City Hall office, taking a cash bribe from Freitas.
While Curran said she was standing by Rose, Hazard and Green called what he had done "a serious violation," as did a third legal ethics professor, Roger C. Cramton, of Cornell University School of Law.
Said Hazard: "It's giving away to people who are not part of the government confidential investigative material. You might suppose you could trust them, but obviously somebody blabbed.
"There are some ugly cases where leaks out of the U.S. Attorneys offices have resulted in key witnesses getting shot," Hazard said.
Hazard said that in his view, Rose should be taken off the Plunder Dome cases and perhaps even be stripped of his job.
"He's going to be done for in the U.S. Attorney's office, very possibly. It's a very serious offense that would justify his being fired and of course his being taken off the case," Hazard said.
Hazard said that taking the secret tapes home "is an infraction," and is "probably against the local rules or the rules anywhere in the country. But to show it is just stupifying. Hell, he should have shut the damn thing down" when his friends came by. "It's just nuts," Hazard said.
"A lawyer has a duty to maintain confidentiality of information relating to the representation of a client. His client here is the United States."
Cramton, the Cornell law professor, said "it might be wise" for Rose to step down from prosecuting the rest of the Plunder Dome cases "and let another prosecutor take over."
"You're not supposed to reveal confidential evidence to others, including family members, even close family relatives. It's clearly a violation of the rules of professional confidentiality," Cramton said.
But the fact that Rose showed the tapes may not necessarily affect the defendants' rights to get a fair trial, he pointed out.
Green, the Fordham law professor, is a former assistant U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York. He called Rose's conduct "clearly improper. It shows colossally poor judgment. It's contrary to everything prosecutors are told about the importance of the confidentiality of ongoing undercover investigations."
"It had the risk of compromising the investigation" and "violated the duty of confidentiality that the prosecutor owed to the government," Green said.
"But," he added, "none of that may mean that the defendant in any particular case had his own rights violated or even if he did, that the defendant in a particular case has a remedy.
"I think it's unlikely," Green said, "that a judge would dismiss an indictment because of this."
But Green said that he thinks "the likely result" will be "some sanction on the prosecutor either imposed by the Department of Justice or some other disciplinary authority."
The Department of Justice has an office -- the Office of Professional Responsibility -- "that has a responsibility to investigate alleged misconduct by federal prosecutors," Green pointed out. "I would assume it will get notice of what happened here [and] that he would be punished internally in some way . . . You can't just ignore it," Green said.
But despite Rose's infraction, Green said that he does not believe that Rose should now step down from prosecuting the case against Cianci and his co-defendants.
"Prosecutors make mistakes and do things wrong but it doesn't always follow that that would prevent them from conducting a trial fairly and effectively."
With reports from The Associated Press.
|
|
|
Printer-Friendly Version
