Lawyer’s ‘Whopper’ Lie About Stabbing Yields Reprimand

Legal Ethics

Lawyer’s ‘Whopper’ Lie About Stabbing Yields Reprimand

Posted May 21, 2008, 06:50 am CDT
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.

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