Prosecutor Disbarred for Forged Texts Apparently Aimed at Framing Co-Worker for Sexual Harassment
The Denver Post (Shelly Bradbury) was apparently the first to report on the story:
Yujin Choi falsely accused Dan Hines, a criminal investigator in the district attorney’s office, of sexually harassing her, according to the Tuesday ruling from the Office of Presiding Disciplinary Judge, which handles professional discipline for Colorado attorneys.
Choi created fake text messages, altered her cellphone records and ultimately destroyed her laptop and phone to try to sell her deceit, the 26-page ruling found.
You can read more in the article, or in the decision, People v. Choi (thanks to ArsTechnica for posting it). The most serious of the purported texts (which alluded to a complaint Choi made about Hines a year before), read:
Yujin, please stop talking about what I didn’t do to our colleagues. You are using your looks against innocent people. If you want to act like a sex doll to get a sugar daddy … fine, but that will not be me.
Eventually the facts emerged, through forensic investigation by the DA’s office (forensic investigation that Choi apparently tried to stymie by causing water damage to her phone and laptop). The decision of the Colorado Supreme Court Office of the Presiding Disciplinary Judge stated, among other things,
Respondent’s fabrication of false messages reflects adversely on her fitness to practice because it undermines the pursuit of truth—the very foundation on which our system of justice rests. As the Colorado Supreme Court noted in In re Pautler, “[l]awyers serve our system of justice, and if lawyers are dishonest, then there is a perception that the system, too, must be dishonest.” Deception within the ranks of prosecutors in whatever form poses an even greater danger of eroding public confidence in the legal system and its practitioners. For that reason, the Pautler court “applied the prohibition against deception a fortiori to prosecutors.” Robinson’s testimony breathed life into this postulate: Robinson noted that the DA’s Office was concerned that members of the public or the bar might think that Respondent had potentially altered evidence in criminal cases she prosecuted. We thus do not hesitate to find that Respondent’s purposeful campaign to smear Hines’s character, which sullied his reputation at the DA’s Office and jeopardized his job and his livelihood, constitutes direct, intentional, and wrongful infliction of harm that reflects adversely on her fitness to practice law….
Respondent caused Hines reputational and emotional injury. This damage was all the greater because Respondent was a prosecutor, Hines asserted. Respondent also betrayed close coworkers and trusted confidants, including Robinson and Cohen, who advocated for her during the investigation. For those employees who continue to believe her, she contributed to what seems to us a rift of distrust with the Front Office.
More broadly, she poisoned the morale of the DA’s Office, contributing to an environment in which victims feared they might be disbelieved and others feared they might be wrongly accused. Further, her actions called into question whether the evidence in the criminal cases she prosecuted was genuine [though apparently an investigation found no evidence of fabrication in those cases -EV]. Finally, her deception not only tarnishes the reputation of prosecutors, the profession, and by extension the legal system, but also threatens to undermine the credibility of sexual harassment victims who seek to hold accountable those who harmed them….
Unremitting honesty must at all times be the backbone of the legal profession. When a lawyer repeatedly employs deceit and dishonesty to harm another person, that lawyer corrodes the integrity of the profession and threatens to compromise public confidence in the legal system. Such behavior seriously adversely reflects on the lawyer’s fitness to practice law and should be met with disbarment.
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