Opinion ID: 2298326
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Nature and Circumstances of the Original Misconduct

Text: As we have seen, prior to the petitioner's consensual disbarment, the petitioner, as he acknowledges and admitted in the Joint Petition for Disbarment, had been convicted of criminal conspiracy, grand theft, and bribery. That fact is significant for the purposes of the Maryland Disciplinary Rules. With knowledge of that predicate fact, confirmed by a certified copy of the judgment of conviction, the Commission was authorized to initiate disciplinary proceedings, Maryland Rule 16-771(b), and seek the petitioner's immediate suspension from the practice of law. Maryland Rule 16-771(c). Those convictions also formed a predicate for the petitioner's consent to disbarment, as the Commission's knowledge of them precipitated the investigation which resulted in the filing of the Joint Petition, of which the petitioner necessarily and undoubtedly was aware. [16] As already noted, this case proceeded by way of consent. Accordingly, there was no occasion, nor need, for the Commission to develop the facts, as Maryland Rule 16-771(e)(2)(A) [17] would have permitted it to do at the appropriate time, beyond what was in the California court's case file and what was agreed to. And, of course, the appellate court opinion was not issued until after the disbarment order had been filed. In its opinion, the California Court of Appeal, the intermediate appellate court to which the petitioner and his co-defendant appealed the judgments of conviction, described the facts, events and circumstances, unaffected by the numerous evidentiary errors the trial court was found to have committed, surrounding, and leading to, the convictions (footnotes omitted): Each of the three crimes for which Cooke and Bobbie were convicted arose out of the same relationship. The victim of each crime was Desert Counseling Clinic (DCC). DCC was a nonprofit corporation that provided mental health services throughout Kern County pursuant to contracts it had with the county. Terence [Cumberworth] was the chief executive officer of DCC. The evidence suggested he viewed DCC as his own company. He bragged that he hand picked the board of directors and could control them. Terence and some of the board members also had joint business ventures that were separate from, but related to, DCC. Terence could not drive because legally he was blind, but he could read correspondence if it were printed in a large font. Bobbie was Terence's wife. She is the mother of seven children and taught special education classes for Kern County. She quit her job with Kern County shortly before her relationship with Cooke began. Cooke was a lawyer and registered lobbyist in Maryland. He met Terence through one of his clients. Terence had grandiose plans for the expansion of DCC. In 1999 he hired Cooke to assist DCC in obtaining government contracts in Maryland. The relationship between Cooke and DCC continued until May 2002. DCC explored several business opportunities in Maryland. Cooke was involved in numerous meetings and discussions. Except for a single small contract, none of the possibilities came to fruition. Cooke initially was paid on an hourly basis for the services he provided. In May 2000, Terence proposed that DCC pay Cooke an annual retainer for his services in monthly installments of $5,000. In return, Terence proposed that Cooke hire Bobbie as an independent contractor at the rate of $2,500 per month. Bobbie, in turn, would provide services to DCC in California. Cooke would retain $2,500 per month for the services he provided DCC. Cooke accepted the offer. Cooke met Bobbie during his dealings with Terence before he (Terence) made the above offer. Cooke found Bobbie to be knowledgeable in the area of special education, an area into which DCC hoped to expand. When Terence made the above offer, he told Cooke that Bobbie was his `arms and legs in California.' Cooke did not question Terence because he had worked with Bobbie and he trusted Terence. Cooke also believed DCC intended to set up programs in California similar to programs in Maryland that Cooke had shown to Terence that involved juveniles with special needs. The arrangement between Cooke, Terence, and Bobbie continued for two years. Throughout this time DCC had serious financial problems, often struggling to meet payroll and pay vendors. In May 2002, Kern County began an audit of DCC. The primary focus of the audit was to determine if the monies paid by Kern County to DCC were used in a manner consistent with the contracts and various state and federal requirements. In other words, the question was whether DCC used the money received from Kern County on the programs it operated in Kern County. By September 2002, Kern County cancelled its contract with DCC and stopped all payments. DCC ceased operations shortly thereafter. The payments to Cooke and Bobbie came to light during the subsequent criminal investigation. Count one of the indictment alleged that Bobbie and Cooke conspired with Terence to commit grand theft and/or commercial bribery. Count two alleged that Cooke and Bobbie committed grand theft, while count three alleged they committed commercial bribery. Each count also alleged as an enhancement that the value of the property taken exceeded $50,000 pursuant to section 12022.6, subdivision (a)(1). Cumberworth, 2006 WL 3549939 at -2, 2006 Cal.App. Unpub. LEXIS 11142 at -6. These facts were sufficient to create a jury question as to the petitioner's guilt of the charges alleged. The petitioner and his co-defendant did not dispute the State's evidence regarding either the payment arrangement or that the payments were received. Indeed, the facts, as presented by the State, were largely conceded. The area of disagreement related to the intent with which the defendants acted. That, in fact, was the issue the jury had to decide, whether the defendants acted with the intent to defraud DCC. As to that, there was, to be sure, no direct evidence of the defendants' intent. To prove their intent, the State emphasized that the arrangement between the defendants and DCC was secretive and the manner in which the payments were structured: they were made to the petitioner, who then paid a portion, one half of what he was paid, to his co-defendant, the wife of the Director of DCC, who negotiated the arrangement in the first instance. And the defendants maintained that they did not defraud or intend to defraud DCC, that they earned the money they were paid. From the State's evidence, divorced from the disputed and erroneous evidentiary rulings, or inferences drawable therefrom, the jury perhaps could have found that the petitioner and his co-defendant committed the charged offenses; it was not obliged to believe the petitioner, and it was free to draw the inference the State urged and wished it to. In this case, however, the jury's findings were not divorced, or free, from the effects of the erroneous evidentiary rulings or the inferences they supported. On the contrary, as the Court of Appeal pointed out, when reversing the defendants' convictions: The prosecutor's job ... was eased considerably by the trial court's evidentiary rulings. Because the trial court admitted the evidence about the lawsuit in which Cooke was involved, the prosecutor argued that Cooke had a propensity to commit bad acts, and this scheme was merely another example of his character. The trial court's comments after Cooke's objection to this line of argument served only to emphasize the prosecutor's remarks. Because the trial court permitted the prosecutor to introduce evidence of [the co-defendant's husband's] abuses of power at DCC, the jury was more likely to infer that [the co-defendant], his wife, admitted her guilt when she invoked her Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination. The introduction of [her husband's] abuses also cast a pall over the entire trial, creating a substantial risk of inflaming the jury's passions. The prosecutor's misconduct in arguing facts not in evidence invited the jury to use those `facts' to convict [the petitioner] and [his co-defendant] and was an obvious attempt to appeal to the jury's passions in an improper manner. Cumberworth, 2006 WL 3549939 at , 2006 Cal.App. Unpub. LEXIS 11142 at  (footnotes omitted). Consequently, the convictions, to which the Joint Petition referred and, to some degree, on which it was predicated, no longer exist. That, in turn, negates the impact of Maryland Rule 16-771(g). [18] There being no final judgment, there is, and can be, no conclusive proof of the petitioner's guilt of any of the charged offenses and, therefore, no conclusive proof of the underlying conduct, which would constitute misconduct under our disciplinary rules. And, because on remand for new trial, the State of California elected not to retry the petitioner, there are no findings of fact with regard to the propriety of the petitioner's conduct, either as a matter of criminal law or ethics, as defined by the Rules of Professional Conduct. [19] This is significant with regard to the nature of the misconduct. As a result of the reversal of the convictions, the facts found by the jury or the findings it made as to the enhancements are not binding and certainly not conclusive. Despite this lack of conclusiveness with respect to the underlying conduct, we do know that the bare factual basis of Petitioner's conduct, his payments to the wife of the DCC Director, were undisputed during trial and, thus, remain so. The inference sought to be drawn from them, criminal intent, however, as the reversal of the convictions attests, was not conclusively proven, and, in fact, on remand, the State of California, having been deprived of the use of the illegally admitted evidence, opted not to go forward with a trial in order to prove this intent. The State of California's refusal to go forward may be interpreted as a concession that it lacked sufficient evidence to prove intent, although the Court of Appeal, at least in respect to co-defendant Bobbie, did not preclude the prosecution from retrying the commercial bribery charge, rejecting her double jeopardy and lack of substantial evidence arguments. Id. at , -22, 2006 Cal.App. Unpub. LEXIS 11142, at , . Thus, California's failure to prosecute the petitioner is important to our conclusion regarding the nature of the misconduct. We must conclude that, once the illegal evidence had been excised from the petitioner's case and California elected not to retry the petitioner, there was no evidentiary basis for concluding that the petitioner engaged in criminal misconduct. On the other hand and nevertheless, although the lack of any fact-finding provides no basis for either aggravating or mitigating the conduct, we also must conclude that the petitioner engaged in the misconduct that he admitted when he joined in the Joint Petition For Disbarment. As we shall discuss, infra, what the petitioner admitted depends upon how that Petition is interpreted. The gap in the record would be even more significant, as dismissal of the disciplinary proceedings and the consequent reinstatement of the petitioner may well have been required, were this a disbarment imposed after proceedings pursuant to Maryland Rule 16-771, had not the petitioner consented to disbarment pursuant to Rule 16-772. Under Rule 16-771, as we have seen, Bar Counsel may file disciplinary proceedings against an attorney who has been convicted of a serious crime, even though the convictions are pending on appeal and, attaching a certified copy of the judgment of conviction, request that he or she be immediately suspended from the practice of law, subsection (b), in response to which the Court may designate a judge to conduct the hearing required by Maryland Rule 16-757(a). If the conviction is reversed or vacated, the action either shall be dismissed or proceed on the basis of evidence other than the conviction. Maryland Rule 16-771(e)(2)(A). Thus, in Rule 16-771 proceedings, where, as here, the convictions are reversed and no new criminal proceedings remain, dismissal of the proceedings, and, therefore reinstatement, will follow. [20] It was this scenario, analogized to the consent to disbarment scenario, that Bar Counsel had in mind when he suggested, initially, that the reinstatement petition should be granted, [21] a position which the petitioner strongly endorsed. That is not this case. Rather than a prophylactic step toward, but preliminary to the final resolution of, disciplinary proceedings against a lawyer, a consensual disposition is the final resolution of the proceedings. Rather than merely being a stop-gap measure that is an incremental part, albeit an important part, of the proceedings, a consensual disposition terminates the proceedings. Moreover, Rule 16-772 focuses not on convictions for crime, but on the conduct underlying the convictions. Thus, while, to be sure, he admitted that he had been convicted of three offenses, the petitioner went on to say that the conduct underlying those convictions was criminal conduct that, in addition, violated Rule 8.4(c). The conduct which the petitioner described as criminal was the payment of a sum of money, over a period of two years to his co-defendant, the wife of the Executive Director of his employer. And, he agreed the appropriate sanction for the Rule 8.4(c) violation was disbarment. As important, the petitioner stated that he was acting voluntarily, without duress, and he acknowledged that the Commission could establish that he engaged in the proscribed conduct. [22] From the foregoing, the petitioner's own admissions and consent, viewed in the light most favorable to Bar Counsel, the Court must conclude, and we do, that the payments to his co-defendant, being in violation of Rule 8.4(c), involved dishonesty, fraud deceit or misrepresentation. This conclusion follows despite our previous conclusion that the reversal of the convictions and the decision not to retry the petitioner resulted in there being no evidentiary basis for concluding that the petitioner engaged in criminal misconduct. A Rule 8.4(c) violation is, at the least serious misconduct, which requires a serious and prompt response. See Attorney Griev. Comm'n v. Johnson, 409 Md. 470, 508, 976 A.2d 245, 267 (2009) (citing Attorney Griev. Comm'n v. Siskind, 401 Md. 41, 75, 930 A.2d 328, 348 (2007)) (Stating that acts of dishonesty, fraud, or misleading behavior may warrant a sanction of disbarment, especially where there are no mitigating factors and no reasons put forth convincing the Court why disbarment is not warranted); Attorney Griev. Comm'n v. Vanderlinde, 364 Md. 376, 418, 773 A.2d 463, 488 (2001) (Stating disbarment ordinarily should be the sanction for intentional dishonest conduct); Attorney Griev. Comm'n v. Kahn, 290 Md. 654, 431 A.2d 1336 (1981) (citing Attorney Griev. Comm'n v. Barnes, 286 Md. 474, 408 A.2d 719 (1979)) (Stating that when an attorney is convicted of a crime of moral turpitude, disbarment follows automatically unless compelling extenuating circumstances are established). To their credit, the Commission and the petitioner made what they thought, under the circumstances, was an appropriate response.