Drug-Sniffing Dog Focuses on Courthouse Lawyer
A drug-sniffing dog checking inmates waiting for court appearances in a lockup at the Los Angeles courthouse focused instead on a visiting lawyer, resulting in his arrest on a charge of narcotics possession, according to sheriff’s police.
Deputies searched lawyer Michael Inman after the dog alerted and found heroin and methamphetamine, sheriff’s spokesman Steve Whitmore alleged in an interview with the Los Angeles Times blog L.A. Now.
Inman is accused of trying to smuggle the drugs to an inmate. State bar records indicate he was suspended for 30 days in 1999 for failing to keep his clients informed in a pending 1995 case and failing to perform the legal services adequately. He suffered at the time from a marijuana and amphetamine problem, according to bar records.
A pending complaint (PDF) alleges he commingled personal funds in a trust account; his response (PDF) filed in January claims his conduct was “connected to an emotional or mentally disabling condition, and to an addiction disorder.”
