Penalty! Lawyer charged with felony in hockey fight
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Hockey games in the Washington, D.C., suburbs can get competitive, particularly perhaps when lawyers are playing. But a scuffle on a northern Virginia ice rink triggered an unusual felony charge this month against a former White House lawyer for President Donald Trump.
Christopher Koehler Grieco, who currently works as chief legal officer for cryptocurrency firm Rain, is facing a felony charge of malicious wounding after a Jan. 11 adult hockey game at a rink in Springfield, Virginia. A former associate White House counsel and special assistant U.S. attorney, Grieco has been released on his own recognizance. A preliminary hearing is scheduled for April 29 in Fairfax, Virginia.
In Virginia, malicious wounding is a Class 3 felony, and those convicted of it face a prison term of between five and 20 years.
Grieco is alleged to have struck another player in the head with his hockey stick and knocked him to the ground before he “continued the assault,” according to a criminal complaint filed in Fairfax County General District Court.
“When [the accuser] fell to the ice, he continued the assault by punching and kicking him until other players intervened to separate them,” a Fairfax County police officer said in the complaint.
He was arrested Feb. 8 by the Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority police before boarding a flight, according to a report by FFXnow.
Dickson Young, Grieco’s lawyer, says his client is a “longtime public servant in the federal sector, including serving as an award-winning federal prosecutor in the area.”
“We are confident that the facts and evidence support Mr. Grieco and that he will be fully exonerated,” Young said in a statement to the ABA Journal. “He looks forward to clearing his name.”
Matthew J. Flynn, a partner in the Washington, D.C., office of Steptoe, also plays hockey in adult leagues in the D.C. area. Flynn, who knows Grieco, points out that hockey “is a rough sport and always has been.”
“If we litigate every penalty in hockey, then there would be no more hockey at any level—but especially adult hockey, which is the backbone or majority of income to most rinks in America,” Flynn says.
A graduate of Stanford Law School, Grieco worked in 2017 and 2018 as an associate counsel to the president at the Office of White House Counsel. He then worked at the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Virginia and at the Office of the Deputy Attorney General within the Justice Department.
Grieco played club hockey at Stanford, where his nickname was “Sean Avery,” according to an article in the Stanford Daily. Avery, a former NHL star, was known for his aggressive style on the ice.
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