Lee Rohn: Coke, Controversy and Dropping the F-Bomb

There’s Something About Lee
Attorney a Martha Mitchell Figure?

Richard Nixon once said that if it hadn’t been for her, there wouldn’t have been a Watergate.

He wasn’t referring to the ubiquitous Deep Throat; he meant Martha Mitchell. The “Mouth of the South” wife of then-Attorney General John Mitchell who went down in flames for his role in the Watergate saga.

Martha Mitchell was a tragic figure whose infamous, midnight phone calls to reporters became the talk of Washington. Back then, she was widely derided as delusional and a lush; she provided the comic relief in an otherwise tawdry tale.

Yet poor, befuddled Martha had the last laugh when many of her allegations were subsequently proved true. Martha had long been known for her scissor like tongue, and this poem was written in her high school yearbook. Who could have guessed how prescient it would prove to be:

“I love its gentle warble,
I love its gentle flow,
I love to wind my tongue up
And I love to let it go.”

In the bizarre story of John Edwards and Rielle Hunter and its peripheral players, trial attorney Lee Rohn of St. Croix may turn out to be the Martha Mitchell in this curious tale. The National Enquirer reported (and Rohn vehemently denied) that Hunter initially stayed at Rohn’s oceanfront manse.

The selection of Hunter’s hideaway is an odd choice, considering that Rohn is currently on trial–after many appeals and delays–for felony possession of a controlled substance with intent to distribute.

In March of 2003, airport drug scanners found marijuana in her tennis shoe. When apprised of this discovery, officials testified that Rohn asked them to “look the other way”. She finally admitted that the drug was for her boyfriend’s sick father (the Good Samaritan defense?).

Still, it’s curious that Rohn would pop up in this story. Or maybe not, given her connection to Edwards (more about that later).

Rohn and controversy seem to go hand in hand. Back in 1982, in Austin, Texas, Rohn was arrested for cocaine possession, but a grand jury declined to indict due to “insufficient evidence”. Litigious by nature and not merely by profession, records show that while representing a client in a slip and fall case against Wal-Mart, the opposing counsel asked the court to sanction Rohn for using the F-bomb and other unseemly, injudicious conduct.

Now housed and practicing in St. Croix, Rohn’s critics have alleged “a wide spectrum of professional conduct violations” such as “judge shopping”. Rohn has sued one company (Innovative Communications Corp. and its subsidiaries, which include the local newspaper) over 25 times. In turn, Rohn has become a gadfly in the judicial ointment, going so far as to accuse one district judge, Thomas Moore, of “inappropriate behavior on the bench.” Rohn and Moore have a long history; in 1999, Moore sanctioned Rohn for her use of profanity and improper behavior toward other attorneys and expert witnesses. (Guess he won’t be inviting her to his next birthday gala).

So, how in the heck did Rielle Hunter supposedly come to stay at Lee Rohn’s pad?

Apparently Lee Rohn is a “very good friend” and colleague of–you don’t say?–John Edwards.

Talk about six degrees of separation. In the summer of 2006, Lee Rohn received an award from the American Association for Justice (Rohn is also a former and present Board of Governor). The keynote speaker for the event was John Edwards.

In a double play for the ages, then-New York Attorney General–and now disgraced Ex-Governor–Eliot Spitzer received the Community Champion Award “for his leadership fight against those who commit consumer fraud, as well as his battle against corruption on behalf of all the citizens of the United States.”

I bet that must have made for some interesting…small talk?

UPDATE: 19:42 EDT

Walter Olsen, Overlawyered, in an update to the story cited here has an update.

In the Daily News reports Rohn categorically denies the story’s truth:

The Enquirer quoted Virgin Island pol Anne Golden as saying Hunter stayed for 10 days in an oceanfront home owned by prominent St. Croix lawyer Lee Rohn.

Rohn hotly denied that to the Daily News and vowed to sue.

More at Overlawyered.com.

by CB
images: lawyers.com; AP; dbkp file

* CB writes for PJ McIlvaine at www.pjmcilvaine.blogspot.com

Tags: affair, attorneys, cover-up, Eliot Spitzer, hideaway, John Edwards, Lee Rohn, rielle hunter, scandal, Virgin Islands