Sex For Legal Services OK in NY, But NG in CT

Trading Sexual Favors For Legal Services
The Connecticut Law Tribune by Douglas S. Malan - March 15, 2010
Torrington attorney faces sanctions after two women make allegations

Ethics rules allow lawyers to take payment in different forms from their clients—cash, check, credit card. A naked back rub is not one of the options. When Torrington attorney Ira S. Mayo allegedly offered to waive a client’s fees in exchange for a massage, he triggered an investigation that seems to have jeopardized his law license over an encounter with a woman—again. Mayo’s case is before Middletown Superior Court Judge Robert L. Holzberg, who is consulting with chief disciplinary counsel Mark Dubois and Mayo’s attorney, Michael Fasano Sr., about possible sanctions against Mayo. This is familiar territory for the 45-year-old Mayo. In September 2005, his license was suspended for 15 months for making unwanted sexual advances toward clients who were referred to him by the Susan B. Anthony Project for abused women. But part of the stipulation of Mayo’s return to the bar in January 2007 was his agreement not to be alone with women in his office and not to represent women in domestic relations matters. Grievance officials determined Mayo violated that order. Rosemary Shadrick, Mayo’s former client, also said that Mayo told her a rub-down would suffice as payment for Mayo’s legal services in 2007. “In this case, our concern is there’s a pattern” of behavior, said chief disciplinary counsel Mark Dubois. Mayo referred questions to Fasano, his lawyer, who did not return a call seeking comment. The three-member grievance reviewing committee in Hartford that heard the case last September disagreed as to what degree Mayo violated ethics rules. David I. Channing, a public defender in Rockville, was the only one convinced that Mayo was attempting to have sexual relations with Shadrick, as prohibited by Practice Book Rule 1.8. Under that rule, which was implemented in 2007, a sexual relationship between an attorney and client is allowed only if the intimate relationship predates the professional one. Mayo “made several inappropriate sexual comments and touched Ms. Shadrick in an inappropriately intimate manner,” Channing wrote, by hugging her and kissing her on the cheek. But the committee majority—attorney John C. Matulis Jr. and layman John B. Walsh—saw it differently: “There was conflicting evidence as to whether or not [Mayo] made sexual advances on [Shadrick] and whether he ever physically touched her in an inappropriate way.”

Courthouse Encounter

Shadrick, who now lives in Illinois, went to Mayo to help her get a restraining order against her abusive ex-boyfriend and to handle a criminal matter that stemmed from that relationship. Shadrick said her ex-boyfriend had her arrested after she used a key to get into his house and ended up taking some clothes that belonged to him. Shadrick described the naked back rub offer to grievance officials. She also discussed an encounter outside of the Bristol courthouse when Mayo was updating Shadrick about her case. “He then went on to ask me if we could get together,” Shadrick stated. “And said he liked kinky sex.” Shadrick told grievance officials that at the time Mayo was representing her, she was afraid to say anything about his actions for fear that she would end up in jail or that her ex-boyfriend would come after her. Shadrick eventually hired a new lawyer. Grievance officials flew Shadrick back to Connecticut to testify against Mayo. After Shadrick filed her complaint in February 2009, Dubois’ office learned of a female inmate at York Correctional Institution in Niantic who claimed that Mayo made similar offers of waiving legal fees in exchange for sexual favors. That information came to light because Mayo had complained to state police that one woman, Tara Wilbur, was trying to blackmail him into paying her $3,000 bail bond after she was arrested last February for selling heroin in Torrington. “She said she was going to blackmail me to pay the money or make a claim that I raped her,” Mayo told police last year. “I feel that Tara…will make up a lie about me to get me in trouble because she knows about my past” with other female clients. Wilbur had a different story. She told state police that she met Mayo in the summer of 2008, shortly after she turned 18. Mayo was representing Wilbur and her ex-boyfriend in a separate criminal matter. Wilbur described graphic comments and propositions that Mayo made to her when the two were alone in his office. She said Mayo, at one point, unzipped his pants in front of her. “He wanted to prey on a barely-18-year-old girl,” Wilbur told police. Though Wilbur filed no grievance complaint against Mayo, her statements to police are part of the record as Judge Holzberg decides how to respond to Shadrick’s complaint against Mayo. “I hate that [Mayo] can take women in such bad situations and keep abusing his privilege of being a lawyer over and over,” Shadrick told grievance officials. “I am afraid he will continue to hurt women like me.”

Check back Monday to see letter to the Connecticut Attorney Ethics Committee urging them to consider how New York whitewashes improper actions by horny attorneys.

CLICK HERE to hear audio/video evidence and see related story, "Attorney Gives New Meaning to Oral Argument"