LINCOLN, Neb.—A Beatrice lawyer’s plan to get his associate out of trouble by threatening to report a Nebraska county attorney for allegedly having expired license plates backfired and will prevent him from practicing law for four months, the state Supreme Court ruled.
In the decision, the court said Beatrice attorney Lyle Koenig “offered to keep mum about what he believed to be illegal conduct by the county attorney in exchange for the dismissal of … charges.”
“Koenig’s actions were, in effect, a conditional threat to disclose the county attorney’s alleged violation. This a lawyer cannot do,” says the high-court opinion authored by all of the judges.
Koenig declined to comment on Friday. After the state Counsel for Discipline brought charges against him, he claimed that while he hoped to persuade the Gage County Attorney’s Office to not charge his associate he was “trying to inject a little humor” while trying to negotiate a plea agreement.
The sanction handed down on Friday is the third time in 11 years Koenig has been either disciplined or reprimanded for violating ethical codes.
The ultimately unsuccessful ploy that resulted in the 120-day suspension occurred two years ago when an attorney in Koenig’s office, Dustin A. Garrison, was ticketed for driving without valid registration or proof of insurance. Koenig represented him after a complaint was filed in Gage County Court.
The chief deputy county attorney at the time got a letter from Koenig stating that newly elected and current Gage County Attorney Randy Ritnour was in violation of the same registration law. The letter included a picture of Ritnour’s allegedly expired plates and a copy of a court motion to appoint a special prosecutor.
Koenig said he would file it if Garrison’s wasn’t dismissed.
“Obviously, these motions are only proposed,” Koenig concluded in his letter. “Can’t you dismiss (this case)? Our lips, of course, are forever sealed if (Garrison’s) case gets dismissed.”
The high court didn’t think it was funny.
“No one—not the county attorney or the Counsel for Discipline or the referee or the members of this court—has believed Koenig’s claim that he was only joking,” the judges said in their opinion released on Friday.
Koenig sent another letter four days later asking if the case could be settled “before we file the enclosures.” Enclosed was a motion that said Ritnour “at least until recently, was operating his motor vehicle without valid registration” in Gage County.
Court records don’t show that Ritnour was ever charged. Contacted on Friday, Ritnour said he wasn’t in violation of registration laws because he had recently moved to the county from another Nebraska county, not from out-of-state.
People who move to Nebraska from out-of-state are required to register their vehicles within 30 days of moving. Those who move from another Nebraska county as Ritnour did in early 2007 can wait until their old registrations expire.
“I knew my 57 county plates in Gage County would raise eyebrows,” Ritnour said, referring to the number that denotes Johnson County on car registrations. he said he tried to register his vehicle in Gage County before the expiration of his Johnson County plates “but the treasurer’s office wouldn’t let me change them early.”
Ritnour said he saw the letters from Koenig and knew he had no choice but to report it as a possible ethics violation.
Garrison pleaded no contest to the expired-plate charge and the charge of not having proof of insurance was dropped.
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