Lawyer Dates Daughter’s Roommate, Gets Disbarred
Not a movie you’re supposed to emulate.
But a year to make love she wanted you to wait,
Let me tell ya a story of my situation,
I was talkin’ to this girl from the U.S. nation.
Biz Markie isn’t the perfect stand-in for today’s tale of debauchery and benchslappery, but it sets the mood. It is about the unrequited love of a young co-ed — the Indiana Supreme Court opinion is silent on whether or not she possessed 9/10 pants and/or a very big bra — but instead of a lovesick hip-hop artist, we have a 40-something lawyer jilted by his daughter’s college roommate.
To the lawyer: Dude, I know it sucks to get disbarred, but this whole “affair with your daughter’s friend” thing could have ended so much worse. Have you ever seen American Beauty?
In any event, just hooking up with younger women, couldn’t be no crime. And that’s a fact. But things get way way more off-the-rails according to the Indiana Court’s decision.
The lawyer, R. Mark Keaton, of Fort Wayne, Indiana, was a 41-year-old married attorney when he took up with a sophomore at Indiana University (later a law student) who happened to be his daughter’s roommate.
To Daughter Keaton: Don’t you hate when your roommate’s having loud sex in the other room… with your dad.
The Supreme Court opinion characterizes the relationship as “tempestuous.” Can we get an example?
(Shouting) Call me the f*** back! I don’t know who the f*** you think you are. But I’ll tell you what, you better f***ing call me f***ing back now! You f*** with me one more time and this time you’ll really f***ing pay for it! And you need to think about it! Now you f***ing quit f***ing with me! I f***ing deal with your f***ing illness so f***ing long, don’t f*** with me another f***ing day! Not another f***ing day! You return my call right now!That call was purportedly made by Keaton to his young paramour after she dumped him, and allegedly represented a pattern of abusive phone calls the lawyer made to the girl. That said, he had some reason to feel rage:
One form of leverage over JD [the sophomore] exploited by Respondent [Keaton] was financial. Respondent had borrowed about $8,000 from JD during their relationship, and JD needed this money repaid for her educational expenses. For several months after their break-up Respondent endeavored to condition repayment on JD’s agreement to communicate and meet with him.You know when your law practice isn’t doing so hot? When you borrow money from a 19-year-old girl. The million-dollar law degree isn’t what it used to be. My question is how, after learning that an established lawyer needed to borrow money from a child, she still decided to go to law school? There’s a head-scratcher. Anyway, she didn’t respond to his entreaties, and he acknowledged this like a mature adult. Nah.
“You do not have class at noon. If you f*** with me this time, it will be the last time. Do you understand?”It was a school day, I knew she was there.
But, enduring abusive phone messages isn’t the only thing this young woman had to deal with:
Unfortunately, Respondent repeatedly carried out these latter categories of threats, both through emails to others and through postings on various adult-oriented websites. Respondent frequently taunted JD afterwards. In one such instance, in April 2008, Respondent wrote to JD, “Just so you know, they’ve been up on one site since March 1, when you started this s***. 151 pictures to date; 209,748 hits! . . . The site permits people to mark their favorites and everyone loves you.”….Revenge porn, eh? How couldn’t these crazy kids make it work?
Additionally, Respondent has maintained and published for several years a blog about JD that identifies her by name and includes disparaging diatribes about her and explicit photographs of her.
Despite the distance between Fort Wayne and Bloomington, Respondent’s unwanted post-breakup contact with JD was not limited to telephone and electronic communications. At least twice during the spring and summer of 2008, Respondent showed up unannounced at JD’s residence, and on one of these occasions JD discovered Respondent peeping into her bedroom window. In the fall of 2008, after JD had started law school, Respondent confronted JD in the school’s law library and demanded she have coffee with him, refusing her pleas that he leave, and Respondent later prevented JD from getting into her car by standing between her and her car door.I went to a gate to ask where was her dorm,
This guy made me fill out a visitor’s form,
He told me where it was and I as on my way,
To see my baby doll, I was happy to say.
And then he allegedly lied during the investigation of all this, which I guess we should have expected.
God bless you, Indiana. You never fail to disappoint when it comes to the crazy. They’ve got lawyers demanding sex for legal services, breaching confidentiality for personal vendettas, and now this thing. I guess the word “Hoosiers” means “ethically challenged lawyers”?
The moral of the story, as always:
So please listen to the message that I say
Don’t ever talk to [or threaten, or revenge-porn] a girl who says she just [is your daughter’s] friend.
(As always, the full decision is available on the next page…)
Stalker Attorney Permanently Disbarred [Legal Profession Blog]
Earlier: Demanding Sex For Legal Services Frowned Upon In Indiana
Prominent Conservative Commentator’s Attorney Disbarred
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