Ethics
Lawyer’s Pringles poop prank in parking lot of victims advocacy center leads to suspension
An Ohio lawyer was suspended Wednesday for tossing a poop-filled Pringles can into the parking lot of a victims advocacy center. Image from Shutterstock.
An Ohio lawyer was suspended Wednesday for tossing a poop-filled Pringles can into the parking lot of a victims advocacy center.
The Ohio Supreme Court suspended lawyer Jack Allen Blakeslee of Caldwell, Ohio, for one year, with six months stayed on the condition that he engage in no further misconduct.
Court News Ohio has the details.
The victims advocacy center’s executive director had attended hearings in a murder case in which Blakeslee represented the defendant. She was due to attend a pretrial hearing Nov. 30, 2021, the date that she saw Blakeslee toss the Pringles can outside his car window into the parking lot of the Haven of Hope victims advocacy center in Cambridge, Ohio.
Blakeslee pleaded guilty to misdemeanor charges of disorderly conduct and littering for the offense and paid fines and court costs of $248. In the ethics case against him, Blakeslee stipulated that he had engaged in conduct adversely reflecting on a lawyer’s fitness to practice law.
Blakeslee had sought a public reprimand. Both sides acknowledged that there were few comparable cases. One of the cases cited involved a lawyer caught driving while naked. Another involved a lawyer who wrote a client refund check, routed through the Oklahoma Bar Association during a disciplinary investigation, that was soiled with feces.
Blakeslee testified in his disciplinary hearing that he had engaged in similar misconduct on at least 10 other occasions, and that he randomly chose the locations. He specifically denied knowing that he had tossed the can into the parking lot of Haven of Hope.
He said his conduct was a “prank” and was “stupid.”
The Ohio Supreme Court didn’t think that the parking lot incident was random.
“Although Blakeslee testified that he randomly selected all the locations in which he deposited his feces-filled cans, the circumstantial evidence in the record weighs heavily against his testimony that he randomly chose the Haven of Hope parking lot as his drop zone,” the state supreme court said.
Blakeslee knew everyone at Haven of Hope, and he knew the victims advocate in his murder case for 20 years, he had testified. He drove 20 minutes with the poop-filled can in the car before tossing it outside Haven of Hope. And he slowed his car down the first time that he reached the parking lot, turned it around, and made another pass past the lot as he tossed the can out.
“We acknowledge that Blakeslee does not appear to have harbored any animosity toward [the victims advocate in his murder case], her colleagues, or their work as victim’s advocates,” the state supreme court said. “Nor did he intend to intimidate them. While the record demonstrates that Blakeslee regrets his misconduct, it also shows that he lacks sufficient insight into the origin of and motivation for his inappropriate behavior to effectuate positive change.”
In mitigation, Blakeslee had no other discipline during “a distinguished criminal-defense trial practice for more than four decades,” the Ohio Supreme Court said, citing a finding by the Ohio Board of Professional Conduct. He expressed genuine remorse and testified that he is no longer engaging in such conduct.
Blakeslee had a cooperative attitude during the disciplinary proceedings and offered evidence of his good character.
He also testified that he had received treatment for post-traumatic stress disorder after serving in Vietnam, but he did not try to establish his disorder as a mitigating factor.
Blakeslee did not immediately reply to the ABA Journal’s phone message seeking comment.
