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.
