Linda Pence Misleads Again (Big Time) on Pastrick Sidewalks-for-Votes Case

Big post, but worth reading.

It’s a new week, and it wouldn’t be a new week without Linda Pence being caught in something.

Usually, it’s some sort of embarrassing failure to disclose her record, like how she was an outside counsel (when attacking the attorney general’s office for hiring outside counsels).

Or when she said she knew nothing about the infamous sidewalks-for-votes case involving former East Chicago Mayor (and Democrat National Committee member and superdelegate) Bob Pastrick (when it turned out she was a litigator in the case for over a year).

Or when she complained about the costs of the outside counsel in that case (when her client settled for twice what the state has paid for the outside counsel).

Or how about her fundraiser at the law firm corrupt lobbyist Jack Abramoff called home before he went to prison?

Or perhaps her unbelievably either wrong-headed or misleading criticisms of the Pastrick case itself?

And who can forget her whining to reporters that she’s “against public corruption”, something that should never even be in doubt with any candidate for attorney general?

But now comes the latest effort by Linda Pence to mislead Hoosier voters.

(Read more after the leap)

It’s becoming something of a trend, you might say, and certainly more than a mere absence of disclosure.

This week’s chapter comes from this article in last week’s Indianapolis Star:

Pence under fire for case

Linda Pence, the Democratic nominee for attorney general, has come under fire — particularly by some conservative blogs — because she was the attorney for a paving company that was involved in a 1999 sidewalks-for-votes corruption scandal in East Chicago.

When she announced her candidacy, Pence was asked by a reporter from The Times of Northwest Indiana whether she would continue the ongoing civil racketeering case against former East Chicago Mayor Robert Pastrick.

Pence said she’d have to review the case.

She didn’t mention her client — an omission that drew the attacks from the blogs and criticism from the Times editorial page.

Pence, though, defended herself in an interview with The Indianapolis Star.

“I never hid anything in my life,” she said indignantly.

Rieth-Riley, she said, was one of many defendants in a civil — not criminal — lawsuit that grew out of the investigation. It is, she said, an excellent company with a good reputation that has done paving work in Indiana for decades. It was referred to her after the company’s regular law firm had to pull out because of a conflict of interest.

The firm was among 27 individuals and contractors sued by Indiana Attorney General Steve Carter in 2004. So far, seven defendants have settled, including Rieth-Riley, which settled in 2007, paying $625,000.

Pence said she could not discuss details because of attorney-client privilege but said companies often settle cases not because they have done something wrong but because it’s less expensive to put the matter to rest than to litigate.

“I had no involvement in the criminal case,” she said.

And, she said, she has no knowledge of what sort of evidence the attorney general’s office has collected in the ongoing investigation. If she becomes attorney general, Pence said, she then would be able to judge whether the investigation should continue.

“If it’s a good case, my guess is I could do it better,” said Pence, who formerly worked for the U.S. Department of Justice.

Only when in office, she said, would she know if the current case has anything to do with Rieth-Riley, and whether that would pose a potential conflict of interest that would mean putting someone else in charge of the case.

“I’ll make sure everything is done ethically. My whole life is ethics,” Pence said. “If anybody says I believe in corruption, that’s just a flat-out lie.”

Late Friday, Carter — whose chief deputy, Greg Zoeller, is Pence’s opponent in the November election — said the U.S. District Court had given his office the green light to go to trial against Pastrick and other remaining defendants in the civil racketeering case stemming from the sidewalks-for-votes scandal.

As Advance Indiana noted, this article was largely a whitewash of Linda Pence’s flagrant omissions and continued refusal to come clean with the people of Indiana (to say nothing of her interesting ongoing unwillingness to commit to continuing the sidewalks-for-votes case itself).

That the Star would engage in such wishy-washy journalism is disappointing, to say the least.

Let’s break down a bit of what Linda Pence said in the Star interview:

“If it’s a good case, my guess is I could do it better,” said Pence, who formerly worked for the U.S. Department of Justice.

My guess is that if she could do better than the attorney general’s office, her client would not have been forced to settle out of court for $625,000.

And to answer a commenter over at Advance Indiana, the Rieth-Riley settlement did indeed come in January of 2006, after the outside counsel was brought on.

*edit*

A confusion on my part about the counsels. G. Robert Blakey, the author of the RICO statute, was brought in by Steve Carter for “advice and counsel” in 2004. Former Federal attorney Patrick Collins was brought on by the AG’s office as outside counsel in 2007 on Blakey’s advice.

My bad (and my bad memory); Steve Carter and Greg Zoeller look all the better here in lieu of that correction, as they clearly bested Linda Pence without help from the outside counsel after all. Given that Pence has based her candidacy in part upon the claim she is the better attorney, the fact that she was bested by Carter, Zoeller, and the AG’s office when litigating opposite them wouldn’t exactly lead one to think that assertion holds any water.

Thanks to Zoeller supporter Jeff Huffman at Big Dawg Tales for catching my mistake.

*end edit*

But let’s look at this whopper:

“I never hid anything in my life,” she said indignantly.

I am not sure what else anyone could call her failure to disclose her involvement in the Pastrick case.

And let’s not forget that it was Linda Pence that brought up that case originally.

She was trying to use it as a political club to beat up the attorney general and her opponent, Greg Zoeller (who is the AG’s chief deputy) by criticizing them for spending tax dollars on hiring an outside counsel (with all of the other hypocrisy inherent on Pence’s part in that claim).

But let’s go back to that line:

“I never hid anything in my life.”

Pence said she could not discuss details because of attorney-client privilege but said companies often settle cases not because they have done something wrong but because it’s less expensive to put the matter to rest than to litigate.

You’d be amazed what you can learn through public records requests.

I learned, for example, that it’s a common thing in these settlements for the provisions of the settlement to include a waiver of attorney-client privilege.

There’s one in section 12 of Reith-Riley’s settlement with the State of Indiana.

It’s on pages 5 and 6 of the settlement agreement (click to enlarge):

And the quote:

12. As part of its cooperation in Section 11, and for the sole benefit of the Attorney General, Rieth-Riley agrees to waive any applicable attorney-client privilege concerning any of the relevant facts as to which Rieth-Riley provides testimony or documents to the Attorney General in the RICO Lawsuit. Rieth-Riley also agrees to provide letters necessary to effectuate such waiver.

Translation from legalese:

Rieth-Riley waived its attorney-client privilege so that the attorney general could further its investigation of the sidewalks-for-votes case.

And that waiver is all-or-nothing. Once that door is open, it’s open, regardless of the “sole benefit” language; my understanding is that’s law school 101 about how attorney-client privilege works.

Linda Pence’s obligations under attorney-client privilege were thus nonexistent here.

So when Linda Pence says that she can’t discuss the details of the case because of attorney-client privilege, she is either lying or not remembering things rightly.

And given her failures from the start to be open about her involvement in this case, I think the reader can have a very clear indication about which one of those is the case here.

At the very least, Linda Pence is committing that most dangerous of political sins: that of omission and of the failure to engage in full disclosure.

Openness and honesty are important qualities to have in an attorney general. Why is Linda Pence demonstrating, again and again, that she does not seem to have them?

Why can she not be open and honest and forthright with Hoosiers about this stuff?

She can discuss these things; her client signed a waiver.

She just doesn’t want to discuss them, because she doesn’t want to talk about East Chicago RICO case (where she represented a co-defendant), sidewalks-for-votes (where her client settled out of court), or Bob Pastrick (who she seems to think is just a great guy).

She wants to ignore them, so that she can gloss over a very important–and very, very telling–part of her record.

And she was hoping that nobody would go digging and realize that she was under no obligations from attorney-client privilege in the case.

Let’s hear it again from her own mouth:

“I never hid anything in my life.”

Sorry, Mrs. Pence.

I don’t believe you any more, because I keep finding things where it sure looks like you are doing just that.

~

For those of you that want to read it, the entire document (all ten pages, including Linda Pence’s signature at the end) containing Rieth-Riley’s settlement with the AG’s office is available in the link below.

Eeast Chicago RICO Settlement Agreement Rieth-Riley

(This post also available at the Hoosierpundit)