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A recent decision by the State Bar of Texas to allow an attorney sanctioned for abusing the judicial process to continue practicing law raises concerns that the current lawyer disciplinary system is too lax, the Texas Civil Justice League said today. In December 2005, the State Bar’s Commission For Lawyer Discipline decided not to disbar Robert L. “Trey” Wilson III, a San Antonio attorney who had participated in a fraudulent lawsuit based on fabricated evidence.
“The State Bar’s decision in this case is puzzling to us,” said Ralph Wayne, president of the Texas Civil Justice League. “The vast majority of Texas lawyers are professional and highly ethical, but this lawyer helped to mastermind a scheme to extort $2 billion based on a claim he knew was false, evidence he knew had been tampered with, and witnesses his colleagues had tried to bribe and intimidate. Faced with this egregious example of lawyer misconduct, the State Bar declined to take any meaningful disciplinary action. We may need the Legislature to take another look at the current disciplinary procedures within the State Bar of Texas.”
In 1998, Wilson and attorneys Robert Kugle and Andrew Toscano filed a product liability lawsuit against DaimlerChrysler seeking $2 billion damages. The company later learned that the three attorneys, or someone acting on behalf of the Kugle Law Firm, tampered with evidence, attempted to bribe and intimidate witnesses and denied in open court facts that they knew would exonerate the automaker. After the fraud was exposed, Wilson told his investigator/expert, Tom Persing, “we ran a bluff, and they called our hand.”
When the lawyers’ misconduct came to light, Judge David Peeples swiftly threw out the lawsuit and handed down nearly a $1 million sanction against Wilson, Kugle and Toscano. Judge Karen Angelini of the Fourth Court of Appeals, which later upheld that decision, called the case “an egregious example of the worst kind of abuse of the judicial system.”
In 2003, the State Bar of Texas disbarred Robert Kugle, who had already fled the country and is believed to be living in Mexico. Two years after a grievance was filed against Wilson, the disciplinary commission finally handed down a two-year suspension, but immediately suspended the sanction, allowing Wilson to continue practicing law. A grievance against Toscano is still pending.
“We understand that the State Bar takes seriously its duty to protect the public from dishonest lawyers by vigorously policing wrongdoing by its own members,” Wayne said. “In this case, however, it appears that the Bar was unwilling or unable to discipline a lawyer who abused the Texas courts by a filing a sham lawsuit. It may be time for the Legislature to consider whether any additional oversight of lawyer discipline is necessary to protect the public and the judicial system.”
Copyright 2007 Texas Civil Justice League
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