Oregon’s Former Chief Administrative Law Judge Pleads Guilty to Child Porn Charges
John Mann’s law license suspended by Supreme Court order
***For the latest on this case click here
Days before his trial was set to begin — for ten counts of encouraging child sexual abuse — former Oregon Chief Administrative Law Judge John Michael Mann changed his plea to guilty. Mann, who has no prior criminal record and has been out on bail since May of last year, is set to be sentenced next month.
According to his plea change petition filed March 3, Mann will face up to ten years in prison, and be fined up to $250,000 for the class B felonies. Mann, who is 57, must also register and report as a sex offender, and provide a DNA sample to authorities.
Mann is now convicted of the disturbing crimes that occurred in Washington County in the summer of 2020. Mann recited in his petition that he had “unlawfully and knowingly possessed visual recordings of sexually explicit conduct involving children,” while “consciously disregarding the fact that creation of those recordings involved child abuse.”
The Oregon Supreme Court also quietly suspended Mann’s law license late last month — an “interim” suspension the Oregon State Bar argued for while their disciplinary case against the disgraced attorney proceeded.
The Bar did not issue any press release upon Mann’s suspension. He will almost certainly resign his license voluntarily or be disbarred for his offenses.
After his arrest, Mann was placed on unpaid administrative leave from his well-paying job, yet somehow still qualified for a court-appointed lawyer. The Office of Public Defense Services, which oversees those limited resources, has been in crisis for over a year and faces a severe shortage of public defenders.¹
Neither Mann nor his attorney Lawrence Taylor responded to a request for comment. Washington County District Attorney Kevin Barton stated, “Generally, we do not comment on active cases so we do not have a comment at this time.”
¹ Not to oversimplify a very complex issue, but perhaps the public defense shortage is at least in part due to people like Mann — who drew a $144,000/year salary — qualifying for free lawyers… not to mention other fiscal mismanagement.
