Legal Ethics
Lawyer’s ‘Whopper’ Lie About Stabbing Yields Reprimand
Posted May 21, 2008, 05:50 am CST
By Debra Cassens Weiss
A lawyer’s “whopper” of a lie about the person who stabbed him has resulted in a written reprimand.
At the time of the incident, lawyer Calon Blackburn Jr. worked as a civilian legal adviser to the Army in Qatar on administrative law, contracts and other matters, the Associated Press reports. He was found in the compound where he lived with a deep wound to his thigh and slash wounds on his right hand.
Blackburn told investigators he had been attacked by a burglar, the AP story says. The actual attacker was a married Thai woman with whom Blackburn was having an affair, which was a capital crime under Qatari law.
“Lying there on the ground, fearing I might die, I told a whopper,” he later said.
Despite security concerns raised by Blackburn’s lie, he was allowed to “retire quietly” and keep his law license, the story says. Blackburn received a written reprimand under a settlement with the Arkansas Supreme Court’s Office of Professional Conduct.