BISMARCK, N.D.—Given a choice between home confinement and jail, a man accused of impersonating a lawyer agreed to stay in his Duluth, Minn., home until his trial on federal charges of mail fraud and making false statements.
Howard O. Kieffer, 53, is barred from using a computer or the Internet, U.S. Magistrate Judge Charles Miller Jr. said Thursday. Kieffer must cut off Internet access to his home and cannot have a cell phone or wireless e-mail device.
Kieffer will have to submit to electronic monitoring of his whereabouts, Miller said.
Kieffer agreed to take down a Web site, Federal Defense Associates, that he uses to advertise his services, and transfer the administration of an Internet site he moderates called BOPWatch.org. BOP refers to the federal Bureau of Prisons.
During the federal court hearing Thursday, Miller ruled Kieffer had violated a Sept. 15 order that he not represent himself as an attorney or sentencing consultant while he was free on $25,000 bond.
“I feel that he has crossed the line,” Miller said.
Kieffer is accused of impersonating a lawyer in federal courts in at least 10 states. Among his clients, court records say, were a Colorado woman who was convicted of soliciting the killing of her former husband, and a former St. Louis Blues hockey player who pleaded guilty to plotting to kill his agent.
Kieffer was charged in North Dakota after one of his clients wrote to U.S. District Judge Dan Hovland in Bismarck, raising questions about whether Kieffer had ever been a licensed attorney. The client said he had paid Kieffer $37,000.
Miller told Kieffer he had been inclined to jail him for allegations that he spoke to at least three federal prison inmates after his bond conditions were imposed.
On the day after Kieffer agreed to the conditions, he spoke to inmate Wayne Milton at the Big Sandy federal prison in eastern Kentucky, a court filing says.
Milton is serving a 20-year sentence for mortgage fraud and an assortment of other crimes, including trying to run over a deputy U.S. marshal. He claimed to have a doctorate in divinity and defrauded churches he served as a pastor, said David Nahmias, a U.S. attorney in Georgia.
Tom Irvin, a U.S. postal inspector, testified at Thursday’s hearing that a prison employee said she helped arrange a “legal call” between Kieffer and Milton.
Kieffer identified himself as Milton’s lawyer, and was allowed to speak to Milton without the conversation being recorded, the employee said.
Irvin said Milton told him Kieffer asked for $15,000 for future legal work on his behalf.
Assistant U.S. Attorney David Peterson urged Miller to jail Kieffer, saying he had violated Miller’s order “before the ink was dry.”
“He’s been stringing the courts along. It’s time the court cut the string,” Peterson said. “How many bites at the apple should Mr. Kieffer have before he is put in jail?”
Kieffer’s attorney, Tim Purdon, of Bismarck, argued that Kieffer had not told anyone he was a lawyer or sentencing consultant since Miller imposed his bond conditions. Purdon said his client believed he could still work as a consultant on other subjects, including the administrative rules of the federal prison system, and he disputed Milton’s statements.
Miller warned Kieffer he would jail him before the trial if “there is one hint” of additional trouble. Describing Kieffer as “obviously a very intelligent person,” Miller said the bond conditions were carefully worded and clear to him.
“It appears Mr. Kieffer decided that he could simply ignore the conditions,” Miller said.
