One bad apple don’t spoil the whole bunch, but thanks to ongoing investigations, we’re finding enough of them in New Orleans to make apple sauce.
Lawyer is permanently disbarred
Probation case draws La. high court ruling
Saturday, September 01, 2007
By Susan Finch
The Times-Picayune
Staff writer
The Louisiana Supreme Court on Friday permanently disbarred a New Orleans defense lawyer who was convicted three years ago of taking bribes to help people convicted on drug-related charges win early release from probation.
The high court suspended Glenda Spears, 38, from law practice in September 2004 shortly after she and former Criminal District Court drug court counselor Angela Kirkland, 48, pleaded guilty to violating federal laws by taking bribes to falsify records in the court’s computer system and recommend judges release probationers.
Spears, sister of New Orleans defense lawyer Ike Spears and sister-in-law of First City Court Judge Sonja Spears, was sentenced, as was Kirkland, to three years on probation, six months of house arrest and 200 hours of community service. Spears was fined $10,000 and Kirkland, who helped investigators trap Spears, was ordered to pay $3,500.
Spears got the Supreme Court’s harshest possible treatment Friday for what a majority of the justices called her violation of the public’s trust: dismissal from the ranks of Louisiana lawyers with no chance of reinstatement.
“The public’s confidence in the justice system and the legal system is surely shaken when an officer of the court purposely conspires to obtain money from clients and works to put forth false allegations to the court,” the ruling said.
Chief Justice Pascal Calogero and Associate Justice Bernette Johnson said they would have ordered a regular disbarment, which allows for reinstatement after five years.
According to the federal indictment to which they pleaded guilty, Spears and Kirkland’s courthouse bribery scheme stretched from Nov. 1, 2003, to Sept. 1, 2004.
But the scheme began unraveling in the spring of 2004 after Criminal District Court Judge Calvin Johnson called the FBI to report a complaint from a probationer who accused Kirkland, then a drug court case manager, of goading him into paying $500 for his release from the probation program.
The probationer agreed to act as bait for a federal surveillance, and on April 26, 2004, agents recorded Kirkland making a deal with him.
Shortly after taking $360, a portion of the requested bribe, from the informant, Kirkland recommended that Johnson release the man from his probation. That was done and noted in the court’s computer records.
Then, after interviewing other people released from probation, FBI agents and New Orleans police officers approached Kirkland, who admitted to breaking the law and cooking up similar schemes with Spears for a year, prosecutors said.
Kirkland allowed undercover officers to monitor her phone calls to Spears and helped them set up meetings to catch her one-time partner. Soon, with agents listening in, Kirkland was calling Spears, saying she had several probationers who wanted freedom from the court programs.
Spears said the going rate was $2,500, which she agreed to split with Kirkland, according to papers the women signed in connection with their guilty pleas.
The calls led to a July 16, 2004, meeting across the street from the courthouse on Tulane Avenue betwen Spears and an undercover agent posing as a probationer. Police videotaped the exchange, during which Spears accepted a $2,500 payoff.
A second payoff, on July 21, 2004, led to Spears’ arrest. After taking another $2,500 bribe from a second undercover agent posing as a probationer, Spears met with Kirkland beneath the overpass at Poydras and North Broad streets to give the probation officer her cut of the deal.
Faced with audio, video, Kirkland’s testimony and recovered cash that had been marked by federal authorities, Spears signed a plea deal in which she waived her Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination and agreed to testify before a grand jury and at trial if called on to do so.
