Sanction to stay on Lee's record

OLYMPIA — The Washington Supreme Court has decided not to review a disciplinary recommendation made by a Washington State Bar Association disciplinary board against former Grant County Prosecutor Angus Lee.

Lee, who currently operates his own legal firm in Vancouver, was petitioning the Supreme Court to review a reprimand recommendation handed down by the WSBA disciplinary board in June with regard to his handling of an incident involving Grant County District Court Judge Richard Fitterer. The Supreme Court decided to not review the recommendation, however, which will leave the reprimand on Lee’s record with the WSBA.

The 12-member WSBA board met on May 6 to hear Lee’s appeal to WSBA hearing officer Terrence Ryan’s findings that Lee had acted unethically in three separate instances when he directed former Deputy Prosecutor Albert Lin to review potential criminal matters.

Lin filed an ethics complaint with the WSBA in January 2010, shortly after losing a special election to Lee for prosecutor. Lee went on to fire Lin after the election. Lin claimed Lee forced him do unethical work while he was with the prosecutor’s office. Lin also contended he was unjustly fired from the office. In response to the complaint, the WSBA requested a disciplinary hearing. Lee’s hearing took place at the end of January 2015 and Ryan filed his findings in February 2015.

In a 7-5 vote the disciplinary board agreed with Ryan’s findings that Lee didn’t take the necessary steps to avoid a potential conflict of interest in the matter of a hit-and-run incident involving Grant Court District Court Richard Fitterer in June 2009. Fitterer was involved in a minor collision with another car near Quincy and did not stop at the scene of the collision. He was later stopped by police in Ephrata, but was not arrested or charged with any traffic violations or misdemeanors.

The incident involving Fitterer was brought to public light at an election event in October 2009, when Lee was questioned by a citizen about why the prosecutor’s office hadn’t done anything about the accident. Lee gave a copy of the police report to Lin and enlisted him to make a charging decision on the matter.

Ryan found Lee asked Lin to make a decision knowing it would create a conflict of interest, as the prosecutor’s office routinely practiced in Fitterer’s courtroom. The WSBA disciplinary board recommended Lee should be reprimanded for the incident. The dissenting members on the board disagreed and argued for Lee to receive a six-month suspension.

“Misconduct in the course of public duties by an officer of the court who has held himself out to be uniquely qualified, to be a publicly elected prosecuting attorney, leads invariably to a breach of the public trust and undermines the public’s trust in the legal profession. The conduct is a knowing violation causing injury or potential injury,” board member Kathryn E. Berger said.

Also in a 7-5 vote, the disciplinary board reversed Ryan’s finding that Lee did not take the necessary steps to avoid potential conflicts of interest when he gave a case involving Elisia Dalluge and former prosecutor’s office employee Kathleen Neils to Lin.

In June 2009 Dalluge claimed Neils filed a false report about an alleged violation of a no-contact order by Dalluge. Lee assigned the matter to Lin, with Lin telling the prosecutor there was a conflict of interest with his involvement in the case, as he was friends with Neils.

“It was not proven by a clear preponderance of the evidence that Respondent (Lee) engaged in a conflict of interest by being involved in the Neils/Dalluge matter,” reads the disciplinary board’s order.

The dissenting members of the board noted that Lee, before giving the Neils/Dalluge matter to Lin, personally made a criminal report against Neils, filed counterclaims against Neils in her wrongful termination suit against him and was aware of Lin and Neils’ friendship. They claimed Lee gave the case to Lin, “in a knowing attempt to coerce the deputy prosecutor (Lin) to act in a situation in which there was a clear conflict of interest.”

A separate ethics complaint against Lee involving a September 2009 incident was dismissed before the disciplinary board’s May 6 meeting to avoid appeal. In the case, the prosecutor’s office received a police report regarding a complaint made by Dalluge alleging perjury against a John Doe. Lee handed the matter over to Lin, but Lin again declined to review it because of a reference to Neils in one of the case documents.

Lee’s conduct while in office has already cost the county a hefty sum, as the Grant County Board of Commissioners previously agreed to pay Lin $140,000 in October 2015 to drop a lawsuit he had filed against the county in 2012 in connection with the three incidents involving himself and Lee.