A federal judge is considering a mistrial in the case of an Aspen woman who was represented during her murder-for-hire trial by a man who may not be a lawyer.
After a week-long bench trial in May, Gwen Bergman, represented by Howard O. Kieffer, was convicted of trying to hire a hitman to kill her son’s father.
The Denver Post found Kieffer is not licensed to practice law in the U.S. and did not graduate from the Antioch School of Law as he claimed.
“It has been suggested that Howard O. Kieffer, who entered his appearance as defendant’s counsel, is not a licensed attorney,” Judge Walker Miller wrote in an order issued Tuesday. “He has now been suspended and removed from the roll of attorneys authorized to practice before this court by the court’s disciplinary panel.”
Miller ordered prosecutors and Bergman’s new counsel, EJ Hurst II, to file comments regarding the propriety of a mistrial by July 18.
Kieffer, 52, is executive director of Federal Defense Associates, a Santa Ana, Calif., legal firm.
But he also is an ex-con with a felony record of grand theft and filing false tax returns. From 1989 to 1992, Kieffer was incarcerated in the U.S. Bureau of Prisons.
The Post found that Kieffer represented at least 16 clients in 10 federal courts since 2004 by taking advantage of a federal bar application system that does not check the credentials of attorneys.
Meanwhile, Kieffer’s troubles have spread to North Dakota, where The Associated Press reported that U.S. District Judge Daniel Hovland filed an order Tuesday suspending him from handling cases in the state and asking the U.S. attorney’s office and the disciplinary board of the state Supreme Court to look into his credentials.
