Legal News

How Far Should Prosecutors Go to Protect the Identity of a ?John??

By Amir Efrati

Legal beagles in Boston are asking that very question after federal prosecutors said they reached a lenient plea deal with a prostitute accused of extorting one of her clients, a prominent businessman, because the prosecutors wanted to shield the businessman’s identity. Here’s the Boston Globe story.

This is what happened: The unnamed businessman frequented a Boston-area prostitute, Michelle Robinson, for 18 months. Last year Robinson threatened to reveal the man’s identity to the public if he didn’t pay her $280,000. He paid it, but then he hired Donald Stern, a former U.S. attorney in Boston, who alerted the feds. The FBI set up a sting in which they caught the prostitute in another act of extortion against the businessman.

Prosecutors offered the prostitute six months in prison if she pleaded guilty to the crime, even though the sentencing guidelines call for about three years in prison. The federal judge overseeing the case, Mark Wolf (pictured), asked prosecutors why the proposed deal called for such little time. (Wolf is known to be tough on prosecutors, as seen in this WSJ story and this LB post.)

In a filing yesterday, prosecutors wrote that they wanted to avoid a situation in which the prostitute didn’t agree to plead guilty and instead went to trial, where the businessman’s identity would surely be revealed. In other words, prosecutors didn’t want to set a precedent whereby whistleblowers are discouraged from coming forward.

Some defense lawyers told the Globe the plea deal gives the businessman — who himself allegedly broke the law by frequenting Robinson — too much deference. Wolf has yet to rule on the plea deal.

Full post as published by Law Blog - WSJ.com on February 20, 2009 (boomark / email).