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Legal Ethics

Two Prosecutors Face Ethics Probes for Secret Recording of Suspect

Posted Aug 11, 2008, 04:52 am CST
By Debra Cassens Weiss

Two assistant U.S. attorneys told a judge on Friday that they are facing ethics probes for encouraging an ex-assistant sheriff to secretly record his onetime boss, former Orange County Sheriff Mike Carona.

Assistant U.S. Attorneys Brett Sagel and Kenneth Julian said the California State Bar and U.S. Department of Justice have opened investigations, the Daily Journal reports (sub. req.). The probes were sparked by a federal judge’s ruling that their actions violated an ethics rule barring lawyers from contacting parties represented by a lawyer.

A grand jury was investigating Carona for corruption, and he was represented by a lawyer when the recordings were made. U.S. District Judge Andrew Guilford ruled in May that the wire was improper under precedent by the San Francisco-based 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. Guilford was particularly troubled that the man wearing the wire also was given phony “subpoena attachments” to get Carona to talk, the story says.

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