Ex-Con Clerk for Stephen Bright Pleads Guilty to Stealing His Boss’s Identity

Lawyer Stephen Bright, president of the Southern Center for Human Rights, had told officials he wanted to help an ex-con get his life on track when he hired Shareef Cousin as a law clerk. But Cousin, a former death-row inmate, didn’t return the favor.

Atlanta prosecutors say Cousin obtained credit cards using Bright’s identity and ran up $42,000 in charges. Cousin pleaded guilty yesterday to charges of identity and credit card fraud and was sentenced to 10 years in prison, report the New Orleans Times-Picayune and the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. Prosecutors expect he will only have to serve three years of the sentence with good behavior.

Cousin was only 16 when he was convicted of the 1995 murder of a man outside a New Orleans restaurant. His conviction was overturned because prosecutors had used hearsay evidence in closing arguments. A prosecutor in the case was later suspended for withholding exculpatory evidence in the case.

Prosecutors decided not to retry Cousin because he was already serving a 20-year prison term for armed robbery.