The attorney general made comments during the recent lead-paint trial that drew a warning from the judge, who then cited and fined him for subsequent remarks.

01:00 AM EDT on Saturday, May 6, 2006

BY PETER B. LORD
Journal Environment Writer

PROVIDENCE -- Throughout the recent trial of lead-paint manufacturers, Attorney General Patrick C. Lynch rarely hesitated to criticize the corporate defendants, but that has come with a price.

Documents unsealed yesterday show that the presiding judge confidentially ruled in December that Lynch was in contempt with one comment and fined him $5,000.

The judge, Michael A. Silverstein, imposed the fine after warning Lynch in November about other comments. He ordered Lynch to pay the fine with his own money.

The penalty was for a brief comment Lynch made to The Providence Journal after a hearing Nov. 16. Lynch described the defendants as "those who would spin and twist the facts."

This week, the judge again found Lynch in contempt for comments he made in February after a jury found that the three defendants, Sherwin-Williams Co., Millennium Holdings and NL Industries, created a public nuisance by selling lead paints in Rhode Island.

The companies may be forced to complete multibillion-dollar cleanups of tens of thousands of Rhode Island houses.

Silverstein scheduled a hearing for possible penalties on the most recent contempt charge against Lynch for May 22.

Lynch responded yesterday with a written statement: "As much as I respect the court's diligence I disagree with the court's two findings of contempt and believe that, ultimately, when they are appealed and evaluated on their legal merits, the findings will be set aside."

He said he would never willfully challenge a court order.

Jack McConnell, the private lawyer who helped present the state's case, criticized the defendants' motions for contempt: "We see hypocrisy in them filing motions against the attorney general for saying something publicly while they have two full-time public relations people in court every day trying to affect the press."

The companies' spokeswoman Bonnie Campbell issued this statement: "The court ruling and sanctions speak for themselves."

Among the documents in the large box made available to the public yesterday were copies of some 27 motions for mistrials that were filed for a variety of reasons by the companies. McConnell said Silverstein denied them all.

The three complaints against Lynch were for alleged violations of Rule 3.6 of the Rhode Island Rules of Professional Conduct which prohibits lawyers from making public comments that would have "a substantial likelihood of materially prejudicing an adjudicative hearing."

The first complaint against Lynch was filed at the start of the trial in October, when Lynch was publicly quoted as saying Millennium's lawyers were employing "despicable" tactics in trying to find out the terms of a settlement between the DuPont Corp. and the state.

At that point, Silverstein issued a sealed order precluding Lynch from making public comments that violated the Rules of Professional Conduct. The judge took pains to ensure that the incident did not come to the jury's attention.

Later, in November, when Lynch made the comments about spinning facts, the defendants demanded another hearing before the judge and asked him to declare a mistrial.

They said even though the judge had ordered the jury to refrain from reading news accounts of the trial, "much of the rest of the population of Rhode Island is reading The Providence Journal and the attorney general's unjust and unfair attacks on these defendants."

Silverstein rejected the demand for a mistrial and instead personally fined Lynch "as a coercive measure to compel him to comply with the court's order of which he has been found to be in contempt." Lynch is appealing the fine to the Supreme Court. He has not made any payment.

The last complaint was filed by Millennium after the jury issued its verdict. In interviews, Lynch praised the jury and characterized the defendants as those who "duck and run" and "refuse to clean up" the lead-paint problems in Rhode Island.

Millennium argued the praise of the jury was designed to influence it in later decisions and the comments about the companies were false and defamatory.

In other motions, the defendants said Lynch was wrong when he said the companies had not offered to help with the lead-paint problem.

In fact, lawyer Paul Michael Pohl said, he had approached Lynch before the trial to explore "some kind of cooperative, voluntary program" that would enable the attorney general "to decide not to proceed with the lawsuit."

Sherwin-Williams also filed a motion to compel Lynch to reveal any comment he made to "the financial market" after the trial.

It justified the request by saying, "Sherwin-Williams is getting unprecedented demands for information about the proceeding from insurers, analysts, shareholders, employees and others. Sherwin-Williams has sustained more than $1 billion in lost market capitalization since the verdict in this case."

plord@projo.com / (401) 277-8036