Bar Complaint Filed by Family of Fallon Smart
Oregon attorney Ginger Mooney represented Saudi Arabian student Abdulrahman Sameer Noorah in the 2016 hit and run
Seth Smart, the father of Fallon — the young victim killed in August 2016 by Abdulrahman Sameer Noorah’s recklessly speeding car — has filed a bar complaint against Ginger Mooney, the attorney who represented Noorah in the criminal case. This moves Mooney and her conduct out of the court of public opinion and into the court of legal ethics, where they belong.
The complaint, which Mr. Smart filed in mid-December, was apparently the first that the Oregon State Bar has received regarding Mooney’s representation of several Saudi Arabian students who fled the United States to avoid criminal prosecution.
“It is unclear if federal investigators are looking into whether Ms. Mooney assisted in getting Mr. Noorah out of the country, but it is our belief that she did so,” the complaint states, continuing that the “record certainly indicates that she was manipulating the case to make it possible.” He concluded, “I don’t think someone like this should have her law license still.”
Mr. Smart summed up his grave concerns about Mooney and the criminal case succinctly to me, saying:
“Abdulrahman Noorah did not escape the consequences of his actions on his own. I have no doubt he received financial support from the Saudi government and consulate, but this happened within the borders of the United States. I cannot believe that Ginger Mooney is still allowed to practice law in Oregon, considering the number of her Saudi clients who have escaped justice under extremely shady circumstances. I find it appalling that I am apparently the first person who finds her conduct and lack of ethics worthy of a complaint.”
The bar will likely ask Mr. Smart for additional information to support his complaint (as they typically do in ethics matters) so that they can proceed with their investigation of Mooney.
Material recently unsealed in the criminal case — and the police report which is still confidential — may provide exactly the evidence needed to support Mr. Smart’s assertions about Mooney’s conduct.
Earlier this week, I filed a court petition to have that police report released, in opposition to the Portland Police Bureau assertion that their records are “exempt from disclosure” because the case is “open.” My petition argues that the police records should be made public because it is ridiculous to view a police investigation into a hit and run incident — that occurred over four years ago — as “ongoing,” and that the “chance of actual prosecution [of Noorah] for the crime is near zero.”
Mr. Smart expressed even greater unease with the handling of Noorah’s “closed street supervision” by Multnomah County Sheriff’s Deputy Kari Kolberg. Mr. Smart told me that he found it “extremely suspect” that “the same Sheriff’s Deputy who gave me her personal guarantee that she would be monitoring Mr. Noorah 24/7 as he was out on bail awaiting trial, is the same Deputy who gave Mr. Noorah permission to go to the library to study the day he cut his ankle monitor as she happened to be out of cell range for 48 hours, thus allowing him to escape the country and consequences for his crimes.”
Mr. Smart continued, concluding that “it is clear the Saudis provided the financial will, but it is people within our own law enforcement, legal and judicial systems who provided the way.”
This story will be updated when additional material and the police reports are released, or other new information arises, especially from Mr. Smart’s complaint to the Oregon State Bar.
