05 Mar 2014 at 12:35 PM

Cheapness, Crime, Murder, Sex, Solo Practitioners, Violence

The Price For Killing A Lawyer Is $1,000 (Plus Sex!)

By Staci Zaretsky

Jessica Strom

How much do you think it costs to kill a lawyer these days? Would it depend on the lawyer’s pedigree and prestige? How big is his book of business? Does he wear a pocket square?
These are just some of the important questions that factor into the price for a lawyer’s head, and if we had to guess, we’d start the bidding at about $75,000, since that’s likely what the very average lawyer who’s been practicing for a while could expect to earn in a year’s time.
Using that number as a starting point, if you found out that someone you loved wanted to kill you and offered just a measly $1,000 to the contract killer, you’d probably be insulted. But wait — what if she also offered sex as an additional incentive to “blow [your] brains out”?
Honey, no offense, but you really aren’t that good of a lay….

Meet Jessica Strom, pictured above in a fabulous orange jumpsuit with a V-neck so deep you can almost see cleavage. Prison couture is simply scandalous right now. Strom, a mother of three, is engaged to John Schellpfeffer, a solo practitioner whom she allegedly wanted to kill in cold blood. Strom was charged with conspiracy to commit first-degree intentional homicide, a felony that could earn her a 60-year sentence.
Here’s more info from the Wisconsin Rapids Tribune, the paper that first reported on these allegations:

Police were tipped off Wednesday to the murder-for-hire plot by a confidential informant who told them that Strom asked him to kill her fiance and fly to Door County to dispose of the victim’s body, according to a criminal complaint. The informant is a licensed pilot who met Strom several years ago while the two were taking criminal justice courses, according to the complaint.
After contacting police, the informant met with Strom on Thursday evening at a cafe in downtown Wausau, where Strom detailed a plan for the informant to make a bogus appointment at the intended victim’s law office, “blow his brains out and walk out,” according to court documents.
Strom offered sex and $1,000 as payment for the hit, according to the police report.

The Smoking Gun has the full police report, and boy is it juicy. According to the report, Strom had been planning to kill Schellpfeffer for two years, and instructed the informant to buy a gun “off the street” to carry out the deed. If he wanted some “extra credit,” he could buy a silencer. We suppose Strom’s “extra credit” would be doled out in the form of sexual favors. The informant originally requested $50,000 to kill Strom’s fiancé, but settled for $1,000 because it was “better than nothing.”
Also better than nothing was sex, and lots of it — Strom allegedly promised to meet the informant and “pay [him] and f*ck [him] and whatever” after he made her a single woman. According to the text of the police report, Strom was giggling like a schoolgirl and actively flirting with the informant throughout her negotiations to kill the man she was supposed to marry. What a classy, classy lady.
Strom has a preliminary hearing on March 12, but we suppose there’s a lesson to be learned from this for all of the lawyers looking for love out there. Ask the object of your affections how much he or she would pay to have you killed. If the amount is greater than $1,000, then you know you’ve got a keeper.
Woman Offered Sex, $1000 For Fiancé’s Murder [The Smoking Gun]
Update: Merrill woman wanted hit man to ‘blow (fiance’s) brains out’ [Wisconsin Rapids Tribune]
Earlier: This Partner Wants You To Dress Up So You Can Be A Tool Just Like Him

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Cheapness, Crime, Jessica Strom, John Schellpfeffer, Murder, Murder for Hire, Sex, Solo Practitioners, Violence

03 Jan 2014 at 10:02 AM

Crime, Guns / Firearms, Plaintiffs Firms, Small Law Firms, Suicide, Texas, Violence

Law Firm Partner Gunned Down By Police In Bizarre Firefight

By Joe Patrice

In a sad yet crazy story, a law firm partner was shot and killed after barricading himself in his luxury condo’s lobby and opening fire on the police. Very few details are available at the time. Indeed, what remotely comprehensible motive could there be for building a mini-fortress in your lobby and baiting the police into a firefight.
Making matters worse, the partner’s young daughter was in the lobby the whole time while he embarked on the strange behavior that ultimately led to his death….

Michael Schmidt (technically, Michael E. Schmidt — not to be confused with his father and law partner, who is also named Mike Schmidt), was a partner at The Schmidt Firm, a prominent Dallas-area law firm. He scored a highly-publicized victory last year winning a $10.5 million judgment for the family of a young woman killed by a “monster truck” outside a strip club. That’s a drunk-driving incident with a monster truck at a strip club, in case you forgot this is in Texas.
As NBCDFW reports:

Police said the incident began after the resident talked to an employee of the building.
”He reported to the employee that his apartment was being burglarized,” said Deputy Chief Gil Garza of the Dallas Police Department.
After that employee called for police, Schmidt reportedly moved to a hallway adjacent to the condominium’s lobby and began barricading himself inside.
When officers arrived, they spoke to the employee and were informed of the Schmidt’s location and that he was armed.
“According to the employee, the individual shot at officers when officers tried to speak with him. The officers then retreated into cover.” Garza said.

Michael E. Schmidt

Thankfully, the officers were unharmed. Also unharmed was Schmidt’s 11-year-old daughter, who unbeknownst to the police was in the hallway with Schmidt during the shootout. Whatever set off Schmidt was serious enough that the devoted father — according to all the sources talking to the media — became indifferent to his daughter’s safety.
Indeed, more than just a good father, everyone describes him as a nice, even-keeled man, making this all the more shocking:

Schmidt also had a real connection with people, his friend and fellow lawyer Randy Johnston said.
“The clients that hired Michael didn’t just get his head, they got his heart,” Johnston said.
Nicholas Turchiano, whom Schmidt represented in a 2010 personal injury case, said he was impressed by his counsel.
“I don’t have anything but positive things to say about him,” Turchiano said. “I’m just beside myself because he’s such a nice person and a very talented lawyer.”
Schmidt represented the family of a woman who was run over by a monster truck outside a Dallas strip club. In a unanimous verdict in February 2013, the jury awarded $10.5 million to the family of 23-year-old Kasey McKenzie, who sued the Spearmint Rhino and the truck driver.
Dallas lawyer Mark Siegel recruited Schmidt to serve as the lead attorney on the case. He said he “had faith in his competence” and respected him as a person.
“I’ve never heard him say anything bad about anybody,” Siegel said. “He may not have liked some lawyers’ approach to litigation, but he wouldn’t really bad-mouth that lawyer, which is admirable. It takes a lot of lawyers a long time to learn that.”

Authorities await a toxicology report, which may provide the best insight into this case as a police dispatch suggested that Schmidt was acting “kinda high” at the time.
Dallas Police Fatally Shoot Armed Resident in Condominium Lobby [NBCDFW]
Prominent Dallas civil lawyer killed in shootout with police [Dallas Morning News]
Prominent Dallas lawyer killed in confrontation with police at luxury apartment in Uptown [Dallas Morning News]
Lawyer shot by officers after reporting burglary near Uptown in Dallas [WFAA]

Editor's note: Nothing lawyers are charged with would surprise this Shark after watching the dismemberment of the Estate of Alice R. Gore, a disabled 99 year old ward of the Probate Court of Cook County.  Lucius Verenus, Schoolmaster, ProbateSharks.com

24 Sep 2013 at 11:09 AM

Crime, Guns / Firearms, Violence

Lawyer Charged With Bank Robbery, Shooting Cop

By Joe Patrice

That sounds awesome! A bank robbery with a sawed-off shotgun, a high-speed chase, and shooting blindly at the authorities. Best GTA mission ever. Way to go Trevor!
Wait… that wasn’t a GTA mission? You’re telling me the crazy bastard in this story wasn’t Trevor, but a 64-year-old attorney turned amateur bank robber? I’d heard of bank robbers becoming lawyers, but the other way around is a new twist. Maybe Spencer Mazyck can make a new “Stealth Lawyer” video about it. Except I guess this guy wasn’t all that stealth since he got caught. He probably didn’t realize there were no more Pay ‘n’ Sprays.
Armed bank robbery. Man, those “million-dollar law degree” guys are really working hard to prove how much you can make with a J.D., aren’t they?

This all started when Warren Gladders of Wentzville, Missouri allegedly strolled into the First Bank of Dutzow on Friday:

Authorities said Gladders had walked into the bank and pulled out a handgun. Warren County Sheriff Kevin T. Harrison said Gladders told tellers not to put dye packs in the cash, forcing the employees to fan the bills at the counter to make sure.
He then ordered the tellers to go to the bank vault and bring him $100 and $50 bills. He put the money into a duffel bag and ran out of the bank.
“He said if anybody did anything, he would kill everyone in the bank,” Harrison said.

Gladders, a graduate of the Washington University of St. Louis School of Law, probably realized this was all illegal. On the other hand, he’s 64. Maybe he could just pretend he was old and confused and get off easy. It worked for Rip Torn.
Here’s what happened next, according to the police. A woman waiting outside the bank saw the whole thing and called the cops. As Gladders tried to return to Fall-Out-Boy-ville, a trooper pulled him over. At this point, the shooting started. Gladders shot the 26-year-old trooper in the chest, but thankfully the trooper was wearing body armor and sustained only bruising. Gladders, on the other hand, was shot in both legs and remains hospitalized. He’s technically been charged with “first-degree assault against a law enforcement officer, armed criminal action, robbery in the first degree and possession of an illegal firearm — a sawed-off shotgun.” This concludes the issue-spotting portion of the article.
According to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, a man at the Gladders homestead referred all questions to attorney Brad Kessler. Interesting. Brad Kessler is a noted St. Louis-area criminal defense attorney. He also considers himself an “outsider artist” who is, well, this guy:

Despite his unconventional looks, Kessler has a reputation as a superstar criminal defense lawyer. Another St. Louis attorney describes him thusly:

“There were four of us who would go to the Downtown Y and work out in the early ’80s. Brad looked like the romantic hero of the paperback novels, with his muscles and long hair. But he paid no mind to all these women who were watching him. Of the four of us, Brad was the one who remained focused on staying in shape. He’s the same way in court, very focused, a natural born litigator.”

So we have a lawyer accused of robbing a bank and shooting a cop represented by the “romantic hero of the paperback novels.” Fun trial.
But the critical question our tipster posed remains unanswered: will Wash U be including “Bank Robber” in its employment statistics?
Wentzville man charged in trooper shooting, bank robbery [St. Louis Post-Dispatch]
Brad Kessler: Attorney-Cum-Artist with Great Hair and Killer Tats Running for Office [Riverfront Times]

Attorney Misconduct

• 23 Jul 2013 at 1:56 PM
• Attorney Misconduct, Crime, Drinking, Quote of the Day, Violence

Alleged Adult Store Ankle-Biter Acquitted, But Was Witness Tampering Involved?

By Staci Zaretsky

[L]et’s try to help the person, she obviously had a bad night, and we don’t need to continue to hurt her dignity about this issue. So let the court do what the court’s supposed to do, and please, we don’t need to have theatrics around this issue.

– Alderman Tom Tunney of Chicago’s 44th Ward, in a voicemail message left for the owner of an adult sex shop about assistant state’s attorney Sarah Naughton, the “apparently intoxicated” prosecutrix who allegedly bit the leg of one of the porn purveyor’s employees, while the scandalous case was still pending.

While Naughton was acquitted of all charges in April, Tunney was recently found to have abused his authority by attempting to “tamper with” a potential witness in Naughton’s criminal investigation.

(Read on to hear Tunney’s message, and see footage of Naughton’s arrest.)

Continue reading “Alleged Adult Store Ankle-Biter Acquitted, But Was Witness Tampering Involved?”

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• Tags: Attorney Misconduct, Biting, Crime, Drinking, Mark Thomas, Prosecutors, Prosecutrix, Quote of the Day, Sarah Naughton, Taboo Tabou, Tom Tunney, Violence, Voicemails

Slain Mississippi candidate was beaten and burned, his family says

www.chicagotribune.com/news/sns-rt-us-usa-crime-mississippibre92311e-20130304,0,5580882.story

chicagotribune.com

Slain Mississippi candidate was beaten and burned, his family says

Emily Le Coz
Reuters
1:25 PM CST, March 4, 2013

Advertisement

JACKSON, Mississippi (Reuters) - A gay, black mayoral candidate killed last week in Mississippi was beaten, dragged and set on fire before his body was dumped near a river, according to his family.

In a statement issued late on Sunday, the family of Marco McMillian said a coroner who performed an autopsy on his body told them about the gruesome manner of death.

"We feel this was not a random act of violence based on the condition of the body when it was found," the McMillian family said. "Marco, nor anyone, should have their lives end in this manner."

Coahoma County Coroner Scotty Meredith declined to comment on the family's statement that McMillian was beaten and burned.

The body of McMillian, a 33-year-old candidate for mayor of Clarksdale, Mississippi, was found on Wednesday. A day later, law enforcement officials arrested a 22-year-old man, Lawrence Reed, who is also black, and charged him with murder in connection with the case.

McMillian was one of the first viable openly gay candidates to run for office in Mississippi, according to the Victory Fund, a national organization that supports homosexual candidates.

Autopsy results are not expected to be released until toxicology tests are complete, which could take two or three weeks, Meredith said.

The Coahoma County Sheriff's Department, which is leading the investigation, has released few details about the killing or a possible motive. Law enforcement officials say the killing is not being treated as a hate crime.

McMillian had been missing since February 25 when his sport-utility vehicle was involved in a head-on collision in a rural part of Coahoma County in the Mississippi Delta. McMillian was not in the vehicle at the time of the accident.

McMillian recently moved from Memphis back to his hometown of Clarksdale to run for mayor as a Democrat. He had faced state Representative Chuck Espy, a Democrat, and former Democratic gubernatorial candidate Bill Luckett, an attorney, along with two other candidates.

McMillian's campaign focused on reducing crime and unemployment in Clarksdale, a city of roughly 18,000 people, said campaign spokesman Jarod Keith.

A once-booming agricultural community, the city has steadily bled residents and jobs over the years and now faces high levels of violence and unemployment.

Another Democratic candidate for mayor, Doris Haynes Miller, said she recently was robbed at gunpoint in the town.

(Editing by Kevin Gray and Andrew Hay)

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/sns-rt-us-usa-crime-mississippibre92311e-20130304,0,5580882.story

In Defense of the Alleged Berkeley Bird Murderers

18 Oct 2012 at 7:12 PMPosted in:


Animal Law, Boalt Hall, Crime, Deaths, Law Schools, Violence

In Defense of the Alleged Berkeley Bird Murderers

By David Lat



Left to right: Eric Cuellar, a mysterious third man, and Justin Teixeira.

It seems that our coverage of Eric Cuellar and Justin Teixeira, two law students at Boalt Hall who have been charged with killing an exotic bird at a Las Vegas casino, has ruffled some feathers. Some readers believe that Cuellar and Teixeira been unfairly maligned in these pages.



In our coverage, we have repeatedly stressed that these two law students remain innocent until proven guilty. We have also cited positive comments about them that we’ve received from sources. For example, correspondents have praised Cuellar to us as “an upstanding guy and an excellent leader” and “a really nice guy.” They described the alleged conduct as out of character for Cuellar.



To some readers, however, these comments have not been enough. They’ve written to us with further testimonials in favor of the defendants, to which we now turn….





Here is one message we received:



I went to high school and college with Eric Cuellar. He is a great guy and such a caring friend. I am shocked by the events that have unfolded for him. He is not the ‘douchebag’ stated in the article.

For the record, we didn’t call Cuellar a d-bag; that was the opinion of a source. We’ve never met him and can’t offer such an opinion as to his personality.



From a second source:



I’m a 2L at Boalt and I know Eric well — I had all of my classes with him last year. I have never known him to be anything but kind and gentle. There’s no doubt Eric is fun-loving — but whoever characterized him as a “frat-type douchebag” clearly doesn’t know him at all. I seriously doubt that Eric is capable of the awful actions he is accused of. In any case, as a legal blog I’m sure you are familiar with the premise ‘innocent until proven guilty.’ Eric has not confessed to anything, and the police report confirms that no one saw him touch the bird. You should be ashamed of yourselves for printing these prejudicial comments when as far as anyone knows, Eric Cuellar is innocent.

That’s definitely a strong message of support. #FreeEricCuellar?



A third tipster tells us:



I was at UT with Eric, and was part of Phi Alpha Delta (which, by the way, is a pre-law club and is only called a fraternity due to the Greek name — I think anyone who thinks Eric is a frat boy would be in for a rude awakening if they went inside any real fraternity house at UT).



I’ve been holding back from sending this because I didn’t want to add to all of the drama around the situation, but after seeing a response calling Eric a “fratboy douche” that “never came to anything that didn’t involve sports,” I felt like I needed to defend his character from people like this that obviously didn’t know him.



First, Eric was the social director of Phi Alpha Delta that year, which meant he was primarily responsible for organizing intramural sports. Apart from that, he was one of the most involved and sociable officers that year. He was president the next year, and he did a great job with that. The organization sucked before he took over, and he helped to turn it into something that people enjoyed, rather than just a pre-law fraternity for a résumé.



As for claims that he isn’t a minority and that his family is wealthy? Both are completely wrong. He is definitely Hispanic, and I never heard him “brag” or say anything about not being Hispanic. I also never got the impression that he was rich; in fact, I know his family was the opposite.



Eric is a caring friend and an extremely nice person. I never heard him say rude things about other people, and I never saw him angry. I was shocked to see [him accused of doing] something like this. He can appear goofy and loud to an outsider, but I don’t think that anyone who ever actually took the time to talk to him and get to know him would think that he could do something like this.

That’s also a very strong testimonial. If Eric Cuellar winds up needing character witnesses, it seems that he’ll have an ample supply.



Of course, he isn’t perfect — nobody is — as the writer of that last message shared with us:



He has faults — he is completely lacking in common sense and (strangely enough) was always someone who followed rules to the point that it got annoying. But he isn’t a monster….



I am sad for him that this will probably end his career….

Actually, if it makes you feel better, I wouldn’t be so sure of that. First, remember that the claims against Cuellar are merely allegations; if he is acquitted of the charges, he should have no problem.



Second, over the past six years that I’ve been writing for Above the Law, I have covered numerous law students and lawyers accused of misconduct. Whenever I do a “where are they now” search, just for my own curiosity, I generally find that the individual in question is alive and well, gainfully employed, and even thriving.



I could give you numerous examples, but I’ll refrain for now, since I don’t want to be accused of dredging up old scandals. So just try it for yourself: think of some law student or lawyer involved a controversy or scandal, look them up on Google, and see what they’re up to today. Chances are that, unless the person is in prison or deceased, they are doing quite well. (If you find a counterexample, email us and let us know.)



As for Justin Teixeira, we haven’t received quite as many testimonials as we have for Eric Cuellar, for whatever reason. One source told us that many view Teixeira as funny or entertaining, offering this interesting information: “It has been speculated that Justin acted uproariously to garner attention from his smarter, taller, and much more attractive brother (that’s right, ladies and gents, Justin is ‘the ugly one’ in the family).”



Wow. I have previously professed my admiration for Teixeira’s good looks. If he has a brother who’s even better-looking than he is, said brother should be a male model.



Because this is an ongoing story, we welcome additional comments about Cullear or Teixeira, positive or negative. You can email us or text us (646-820-8477). Please note, however, that we may wait until further developments unfold in the case before we run another post on them. Thanks.



Earlier: The Accused Berkeley Bird Beheaders: The Arrest Report, The Dean’s Reaction, and More

A Closer Look at the Alleged Berkeley Bird Murderers

Law Students of the Weekend: Alleged Berkeley Bird Beheaders




http://abovethelaw.com/2012/10/in-defense-of-the-alleged-berkeley-bird-murderers/#more-200366

Quote of the Day: The Law Is Serious Business (Seriously)

31 May 2012 at 5:19 PMPosted in:


Asians, China, Civil Rights, Crime, New York Times, NYU Law School, Quote of the Day, Torture, Violence

Quote of the Day: The Law Is Serious Business (Seriously)

By Christopher Danzig

Chen Guangcheng

The fundamental question the Chinese government must face is lawlessness. China does not lack laws, but the rule of law.

– Chinese civil rights activist Chen Guangcheng, in an op-ed piece in yesterday’s New York Times. Guangcheng is currently studying law at the U.S.-Asia Law Institute at NYU Law School.

(Keep reading to see how Guangcheng describes the lawless conduct he and his family have allegedly faced — at the hands of law enforcement — in his homeland.)

As much as some liberals tend to pooh-pooh the American tendency towards self-congratulation (disclosure: guilty as charged), reading tales like this really helps to keep things in perspective. We are lucky to live in the United States. Guangcheng provides some background about criminal law in China:

Although China’s criminal laws, like those of every country, are in need of constant improvement, if faithfully implemented they could yet offer its citizens significant protection against arbitrary detention, arrest and prosecution. Countless legal officials, lawyers and law professors have labored for decades to produce constitutional and legislative rules intended to prevent a recurrence of the nightmarish anti-rightist campaign and other “mass movements” of the 1950s and the later abominations of the Cultural Revolution of 1966-76.

No doubt, America has more than its fair share of criminal justice problems. But at least people don’t disappear or receive beatings from police for basically no reason. Oh yeah, and in the U.S., attorneys aren’t banned from defending politically unpopular individuals:

But those protections have been frequently ignored in practice, as they were in my case and in the case of my nephew, Chen Kegui. After the local police discovered my escape from my village in April, a furious pack of thugs — not one in uniform, bearing no search or arrest warrants and refusing to identify themselves — scaled the wall of my brother Guangfu’s farmhouse in the dead of night, smashed through the doors and brutally assaulted my brother.

After detaining him, the gang returned twice more, severely beating my sister-in-law and nephew with pickax handles. At that point, Kegui tried to fend them off by seizing a kitchen knife and stabbing, but not killing, three of the attackers.

Kegui, who is 32 years old, was then detained in Yinan County and, absurdly, charged with attempted homicide. No one has been able to reach him, and he has most likely been tortured even more severely than his father was. Although China signed the United Nations convention against torture in 1988 and has enacted domestic laws to implement it, torture to extract confessions is still prevalent.

Moreover, none of the lawyers his family has sought to retain have been allowed to work on the case. Instead, the authorities have announced that Kegui will be forced to accept the assistance of government-controlled legal-aid lawyers.

Best of luck to Guangcheng in his civil rights work and his legal studies. It takes a lot of courage to speak out as he has. We hope his time in America goes well and that he continues to stay safe.


http://abovethelaw.com/2012/05/quote-of-the-day-the-law-is-serious-business-seriously/

Hating on Hate Crime Laws

03 Apr 2012 at 11:31 AMPosted in:


Crime, Law Professors, New York Times, Quote of the Day, Violence

Quote of the Day: Hating on Hate Crime Laws

By David Lat

[T]he fact that it is constitutional and commonplace does not quiet the nagging sense that hate crime legislation resembles something from an Orwell dystopia. Horrific crimes deserve stern justice, but don’t we want to be careful about criminalizing a defect of character? Because our founders believed that democracy requires great latitude for dissent, America, virtually alone in the developed world, protects the right to speak or publish the most odious points of view. And yet the government is authorized to punish you for thinking those vile things, if you think them in the course of committing a crime.
– Bill Keller, former executive editor of the New York Times, in an op-ed piece discussing the cases of Tyler Clementi and Trayvon Martin.

(A law professor makes a cameo in the column, after the jump.)


Bill Keller cites the work of former University of Illinois law dean Heidi Hurd:

Back in 2001, Heidi M. Hurd, a professor who comingles law and philosophy, wrote an article entitled “Why Liberals Should Hate ‘Hate Crime Legislation.’ ” The thesis sounded contrarian; hate crime laws evolved out of a great liberal cause — civil rights — and have been propelled by activists and politicians most of us would call liberal. Hurd, though she is a Democrat, was referring not to the contemporary political left but to traditional, John-Locke-and-John-Stuart-Mill liberalism, which holds that the state is licensed to temper bad behavior, not to perfect human nature. Hate crime laws, she wrote, crossed that line: “The law now regulates not only what we do, but who we are.”

…. The distinction Hurd makes — convincingly, I think — is that when you penalize intent you are punishing matters of choice. One can choose not to pull the trigger, not to throw the rock, not to steal the purse.

“You can’t choose not to be prejudiced or biased — at least not willy-nilly, on the spot,” she told me, when I called her the other day at the University of Illinois. “We pass moral judgments all the time against bigots and chauvinists and homophobes and so forth. But this is a question not of what we should morally blame people for, but of what we should deprive them of liberty for.”

You can read the rest of Keller’s very interesting column, which includes additional commentary from Professor Hurd, over here.

Tyler and Trayvon [New York Times via ABA Journal]

Please read complete article at link below:


http://abovethelaw.com/2012/04/quote-of-the-day-hating-on-hate-crime-laws/#more-148151