Casino backer suspended

OXFORD COUNTY — Seth T. Carey, the Rumford lawyer who launched the drive to bring a casino to Oxford County, has been temporarily disbarred by the Supreme Judicial Court.

In a February 12 decision, the court suspended Carey from the practice of law for six months, beginning March 30.  Before he can be reinstated, Carey will have to prove that he has “undertaken further education in trial advocacy and professional ethics.”  He also will have to hire an established trial attorney “not a relative or member of his firm . . . to monitor and mentor him for one year following reinstatement.”

The complaint brought by the Maine Board of Overseers of the Bar in May, 2008, resulted in a two-day hearing October 7-8, less than a month after Carey sold all but 15 percent of his interest in the casino project to The Olympia Group, a Las Vegas-based developer of resorts and casinos.

Following final oral arguments February 9, the court came down on Carey, saying he violated Maine Bar rules by contacting the clients of other lawyers without permission.  The court also heard negative testimony from District Court Judges John McElwee and Valerie Stanfill.

“The deficiencies identified by the complaining judges in this matter illuminate a lack of fundamental skills, competencies, and preparation in trial work in general, and criminal defense in  particular,” wrote Associate Justice Andrew M. Mead, in his ruling against Carey.

According to testimony, Carey produced a divorce agreement for a client, and then went “behind [the] back” of the opposing attorney by joining his client on speaker phone while he attempted to get his wife to sign the document.  Even after the opposing lawyer complained, Carey allegedly submitted a second settlement agreement directly to that attorney’s client, without his knowledge.

Judge McElwee testified that Carey later tried to submit these unsigned settlements into evidence “despite the fact that it was completely inadmissible and improper.”

McElwee also complained that, during trial, Carey referenced facts not in evidence during his closing remarks, refused to show documents he was quoting from to the opposing attorney, and used inflammatory language “not justifiable or appropriate in the context of actual evidence.”

In a second case, Carey engaged another attorney’s client in a courthouse conversation, although he later claimed not to have known this person was a party to ongoing proceedings he was involved in, or that the conversation involved the pending case.

“While Mr. Carey’s professed ignorance of these facts is arguably possible, it is not plausible,” wrote Mead.

Judge Stanfill testified about her doubts regarding Carey’s “core competence” referencing a case involving a motor vehicle offense in which Carey “remained oblivious” to weaknesses in the state’s case and instead “undertook ineffectual examination strategies.”

Following repeated admonishments for asking leading questions, “Judge Stanfill was left with the clear impression that Mr. Carey was unaware of the nature and structure of leading questions and, equally as important, how to proceed without using them,” wrote Mead.

Judge Stanfill later ordered the Clerk of Court in Farmington to “refrain from appointing Mr. Carey to any future criminal defense matters” following his apparent mishandling of a bail hearing, in which he could offer only that bail set for his client “seemed a little high” with no further “advocacy on behalf of the client [that] is demanded.”

Finally, Mead faulted Carey for testimony during his hearing that was “evasive, combative and accusatory.”  Carey also reportedly said during Grievance Commission proceedings that he “was going to wind down his practice and possibly undertake further study.” 

On the assumption that “the public would be protected by the fact that Mr. Carey would be voluntarily withdrawing from the active practice of law,” the Assistant Bar Council did not press the case against him at that time.  Because Carey continued to take on clients, Mead called his earlier statement “disingenuous.”

Mead also suggests that Carey may have perjured himself by saying that he had no contact with law enforcement following a town meeting incident, even though he was subsequently subject to an assault charge, later dismissed.

The casino proposal went down to defeat at the polls in November, with 54 percent of Mainers against the idea.  Much of the criticism leveled against the proposal was aimed at provisions written into the bill by Carey, during the project’s formative stages.

Because the bill had been submitted to the Secretary of State with the requisite number of signatures by the time Olympia took over, it was powerless to change any of those provisions.

Among Carey’s ideas that cost the casino widespread support were passages that would have lowered the age limit for gambling, or working in a bar, instituted a 10-year ban on any competing developments and mandated seating of the casino president on more than two dozen board and commissions in Maine.  Carey’s bill also would have doled out revenue from any casino to a laundry list of state agencies, in an apparent attempt to win support.

State Rep. Sawin Millett (R - Waterford) has since excised those provisions from Carey’s original proposal –  limiting  recipients of gambling revenue to economic development and infrastructure projects — and resubmitted it to the state legislature.

Millet’s bill also would remove voters from other counties from the approval process for an Oxford County casino.  The bill is expected to be printed and sent to committee by early March.