As Howard Kieffer faces up to 25 years in prison next month for impersonating a lawyer, one of his former Colorado clients continues fighting from prison to get her criminal case overturned.
Gwen Bergman, who was convicted in May 2008 of trying to hire a hit man to kill her son’s father, has appealed her case to the 10th Circuit Court in Denver.
Bergman wants the judges to set aside her conviction or send the case back to district court so she can be sentenced to time served.
Her attorney, Alleen VanBebber, and Assistant U.S. Attorney John M. Hutchins have asked the 10th Circuit for permission to argue the case before a three-judge panel.
In 2007, Bergman’s family hired Kieffer for $70,000 so he could represent her during her bench trial before U.S. District Judge Walker D. Miller.
Her brother, Steve Bergman, believed that Kieffer was an attorney, as did many other clients and attorneys Kieffer worked with nationwide.
During Bergman’s trial, Kieffer was assisted by licensed Maryland attorney EJ Hurst II, and prosecutors are arguing that because a second attorney was present during the trial, Bergman was represented by counsel.
“Kieffer certainly was no shrinking violet, objecting numerous times to evidence, sometimes receiving favorable rulings,” Hutchins wrote in his brief.
Federal prosecutors also believe that no trial error occurred, despite Kieffer’s lack of a law license.
But VanBebber says the case should have never moved forward to trial because Kieffer alone represented Bergman at a mental competency hearing before the trial started. In legal briefs, she argues that Kieffer should never have agreed that Bergman was ready to proceed, even though Bergman consented to the strategy.
Bergman is about halfway through her nine-year sentence because she has been in custody since 2004.
In 2006, Bergman pleaded guilty to a lesser charge than solicitation to commit murder and was sentenced to five years in prison, but she appealed her case and won. So prosecutors charged her again, but this time, they sought more prison time and by then, she had hired Kieffer.
In June 2008, The Denver Post found Kieffer was not licensed to practice law and did not attend law school.
Records show that Kieffer represented at least 16 people in 10 different federal jurisdictions.
Bergman’s case appears to be the only one that went to trial.
In April, Kieffer was convicted in U.S. District Court in Bismarck, N.D., of mail fraud and making false statements related to posing as an attorney in that jurisdiction.
He is due to be sentenced in Bismarck on Aug. 14.
Felisa Cardona: 303-954-1219 or fcardona@denverpost.com
