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In re Myers5/17/1999
ORIGINAL PROCEEDING IN DISCIPLINE
EN BANC ATTORNEY SUSPENDED
PER CURIAM
Nancy L. Myers is the respondent in this lawyer discipline case. She defaulted before the grievance committee and has not appeared in this court. A hearing panel of the grievance committee approved the findings and recommendation of a hearing board that Myers be suspended for ninety days for her inappropriate conduct towards the complaining witnesses in a criminal case brought against her client. Although we accept the recommendations, we order that the ninety day suspension is to run consecutively to the suspension for a year and a day that Myers is currently serving for unrelated misconduct.
I. The Proceedings Below
Nancy L. Myers was admitted to practice law in this state in 1990. She answered the formal complaint filed in this case, but she did not appear at the hearing, or submit any evidence. The hearing board found the following facts by clear and convincing evidence.
Mary Jones and Bill Smith (not their real names) operated a newspaper distribution business in Buena Vista, Colorado. At the end of August 1995, they discovered that $1,800 was missing from the business. They suspected Debbie Johnson (not her real name), one of their employees. Johnson later admitted to them that she had taken the money and she was subsequently charged with theft in Buena Vista District Court. The $1,800 was significant to Jones and Smith because they made most of their money in the summer, which was almost over.
Johnson spoke with Myers about representing her on the theft charges. On September 30, 1995, Myers called Jones and said that she did not represent Johnson on the criminal charges. However, she told Jones that the money Johnson had stolen would be returned if Jones was willing to drop the theft charges. The money would be available as soon as Jones and Smith dropped the charges. Jones declined to try to have the theft charges dismissed in exchange for immediate restitution.
Myers talked with Jones again on October 7, 1995. Myers said that she was now representing Johnson and that the case could take a long time if her client waived her right to a speedy trial. This information upset Jones because she needed the stolen money back.
On November 14, 1995, Myers called Smith and discussed with him the possibility that Johnson might plead guilty to a misdemeanor and, in exchange, Johnson would pay restitution directly to him and Jones. If Johnson was not offered a reduction in the charge to a misdemeanor, she would probably be placed on probation and would pay restitution at $20 per month. During the same phone call, Myers told Smith that she had information that he was involved in illegal drug sales and usage. She also told him that she knew about his felony conviction for larceny in Idaho.
Smith told Myers that he thought that the larceny charge (which was almost thirty years old) had been dismissed. He asked Myers how to get the charge off his record, and she told him it would be costly to do so. At the time that the complainant took Smith's deposition for this proceeding, he still thought that his criminal record indicated that he was a "grand larcenist." In fact, there was no record of any conviction for Jones when Myers told him there was; only one for an arrest.
Before Jones and Smith called the police about the theft, Johnson executed a written confession to stealing the money, which she signed. Beneath Johnson's name, Smith signed his name, as a witness. Myers told him that because he did not write "witness" next to his name on the confession, Smith "was as guilty as [Johnson] was."
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