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You Like Tomato and I Like Tomahto

By Lynne DeVenny

You like potato and I like potahto, You like tomato and I like tomahto
Potato, potahto, Tomato, tomahto, Let's call the whole thing off

~ Louis Armstrong, "Let's Call The Whole Thing Off"

Tomatoes, tomahtos, whichever you prefer - the prison system still frowns on inmates receiving steamy photos of their gal pals wearing nothing but the "strategically placed" ripe, red fruit. (If this post makes you see tomatoes in an uncomfortable new light, I'm sorry.)

It doesn't matter if you're only an unsuspecting paralegal delivering personal mail [thinly] disguised as confidential legal correspondence to "The Tomato King" (also known as Frederick Scott Salyer) during his residence at the Sacramento Main County Jail. You're still the one banned from future jailhouse visits with your firm's client.

The AmLaw Daily reports:

Here's one we haven't heard before, via the Los Angeles Times: Sacramento, Calif., authorities have banned a law firm paralegal from a county jail after she brought a firm client a package marked "Atty Client" that contained an emery board and a nude photograph of one of the client's girlfriends holding tomatoes over her breasts. Ahem.

The contents of the package are not what we'd normally consider to be covered by the attorney-client privilege, and the authorities in Sacramento agreed. Despite the fact that the paralegal from the four-lawyer firm Segal & Kirby didn't know she was delivering a produce pin-up, they banned her from visiting the firm's client, Frederick Scott Salyer, the Times reports.

Not having to deliver this guy's mail sounds like more of a relief than a punishment...

Sources: The AmLaw Daily; Los Angeles Times

Full post as published by Practical Paralegalism on May 12, 2010 (boomark / email).