Oregon State Bar indicts itself in Ashton case

Obligatory Terry Bean subtitle, for clicks

Although he may appeal, Portland attorney Derek Ashton was suspended on Friday, for his actions while representing Terry Bean in his 2013 criminal sex abuse case. But for Bean’s notoriety — and the public’s apparent appetite for news about the alleged crime — Ashton’s 60-day suspension likely would’ve gone unremarked upon.

However, the 42-page suspension decision revealed a problem of far greater importance than a single licensing matter: The Oregon State Bar shit the bed, and shit it quite publicly. The Bar did so by misleading its own disciplinary panel, while relying solely on the word of disgraced former attorney Lori Deveny; and by trying to invent some sort of new innuendo-based evidence code, exclusively for Ashton’s hearing.

All of this was so extraordinary and concerning, that the trial panel who decided Ashton’s sanction used a considerable amount of their 42 pages dissecting and effectively admonishing the Bar’s unusual conduct, including its lengthy delay in bringing the case.

As background, the Bar accused Ashton of knowingly participating in Deveny’s scheme to hide Bean’s alleged victim (who was somehow her client), so that the minor, known by the pseudonym MSG, could avoid testifying at the criminal trial.

In making their case, the Bar “relied almost exclusively” upon texts Deveny sent to Ashton in 2015, and upon an 84-page transcript of Deveny squealing to the Portland Police — months after she had resigned her law license, while desperate to avoid prosecution for her own decades-long crime spree.

The Bar apparently placed full faith in Deveny’s squeals, particularly that Ashton “was aware of and concocted a plan” to use a “payment of $20,000 to MSG” to help Deveny “hide MSG from law enforcement and avoid service of a trial subpoena.”

In its opening statement, the Bar promised that:

“The evidence will show that five people were implicated in Deveny’s scheme to secrete MSG: [Ashton], Attorney Deanna Wray, Ms. Wray’s legal assistant Heather Coffey, MSG, and MSG’s mom. You will see that, of those five people, four of them corroborated what Ms. Deveny told police: Ms. Wray, Ms. Coffey, MSG, and MSG’s mom. The one person who said [Ms. Deveny is] lying is [Ashton], the money man.”

But according to the panel’s decision, the Bar’s promise turned out to be empty:

“[T]he Bar presented no evidence that Wray, Coffee [sic], MSG, or MSG’s mother ‘corroborated what Ms. Deveny told police.’ None of those individuals testified at trial, and none of the exhibits containing statements or stipulations by those witnesses implicated [Ashton] in Deveny’s scheme to hide MSG.”

Read that again: The Bar could have called five witnesses to back up their faith in Deveny’s statements, but didn’t call a single one. This “was particularly surprising to the panel,” who then asked the Bar to answer a direct question in its written closing statement, to ensure that the panel had not missed something:

“Has any person other than Ms. Deveny stated, confirmed or corroborated — orally or in writing — that Respondent knew of and participated in efforts to secrete MSG from accepting service of a trial subpoena? If so, whom? And where in the record does that evidence appear?”

Ouch. An attorney with shame would have died a little upon receiving that question. Instead, in response:

“[T]he Bar conceded that it is ‘not aware of any explicit evidence of any other person stating, confirming, or corroborating that [Ashton] knew of and participated in efforts to secrete MSG from accepting service of a trial subpoena.’”

The panel categorized the Bar’s response as “telling.” That may sound soft, but it’s a pretty firm rebuke from a tribunal that spent three days waiting for evidence to materialize that would support the Bar’s promise.

As for Deveny’s “ambiguous” texts to Ashton, which the Bar insisted showed a “collusive relationship” between the two, they read in retrospect as Deveny laying down traps for Ashton to step into, so she’d gain another accomplice. Ashton testified at trial that he “had no idea what Deveny’s texts meant.” The panel opined, “[W]hatever evidentiary value those messages add, they are not ‘clear and convincing.’”

As a whole, the panel wrote that “Deveny’s credibility as an objective witness is essentially worthless,” and noted that Ashton and the Bar stipulated to the fact that Deveny was the worst liar that Oregon’s legal community had ever seen.

Ashton — who actually called respected character witnesses at trial, including a judge — said in a statement, “It is shocking and incredible that the Bar Disciplinary counsel relied on the word of Lori Deveny, the most prolific liar and fraud in the history of the Oregon State Bar, to pursue this case against me.”

Correct. Nobody in their right mind would use Deveny’s musings to line a litterbox, let alone as grounds to disbar another attorney. The panel opinion thus underscores just how shocking it is that the foundation of the Bar’s entire case was Deveny’s word.

It begs the question: Is the Bar genuinely incompetent, or is this an instance of public corruption masquerading as incompetence?

Disciplinary counsel Courtney Dippel, who tried the Bar’s case, has substantial legal experience, so it’s surprising that she suddenly doesn’t understand how evidence works, or doesn’t know she shouldn’t mislead the court in her opening argument — or ever, actually.

We’re left to question, then, why the Bar is so devoted to rehabilitating Lori Deveny’s word and legacy. If the Bar needs to continue openly propping up its very worst regulatory failures, then what on earth must the agency be doing behind its formidable façade of public protection?¹

¹ And here is another important question: Why does the Oregonian refuse to write about the Bar’s conduct in this matter and others related to Deveny? I don’t believe that the reporter even read the entire decision (like I did), and instead relied upon a summary spoonfed to them by the Bar itself. Ashton’s full quote regarding the Bar was not published, a decision no doubt made to spare the Oregonian’s readers the terrible news that one of their most quietly important state agencies is literally rotten.

As an aside about the texts between Deveny and Ashton, particularly the one in which Deveny “joked” about murdering Bean’s prosecutor, Scott Healy: The Bar pointed to those texts to imply that Ashton “lacked character,” totally glossing over the fact that Deveny is actually suspected of murdering her husband.