It’s not every day that the American Bar Association website offers the world a dish of such delicious implications as this, served on a veritable silver platter, but PJM LifeStyle readers, today is our lucky day. The eye-catching headline reads “Massage Parlor Mistrial Declared After Masseuse Recognizes Defense Lawyer as Client:”
A Chicago federal judge declared a mistrial last week in a sex-trafficking prosecution after a masseuse who worked for the defendant and testified for the prosecution recognized the defense lawyer as a client.
After stepping down from the stand, masseuse Liudmyla Ksenych told prosecutors she recognized defense lawyer Douglas Rathe, report the Chicago Sun-Times and the Chicago Tribune.
The revelation prompted U.S. District Court Judge Robert Gettleman to declare a mistrial in the case against a massage parlor owner accused of threatening immigrant women to extort money and force them to into sex trafficking.
As it turned out, not only was the prosecution witness a professional masseuse but, according to her client, the defense counsel, she holds a bachelor’s degree in law from her native Ukraine. The lawyer failed to recognize her name on the witness list because she had worked as a masseuse under an assumed name.
Considering how law firms have been unleashing torrents of young, unemployed lawyers in the aftermath of the 2008 financial crisis and the recession it deepened, I have to admire the gumption of a young law graduate from central Europe coming to this country and contributing to the American economy by dint of hard work. There was no evidence presented that Liudmyla Ksenych performed anything but massages for the defense attorney or for anyone else.
I wish her well in her future legal studies and I hope the defense attorney has the intestinal fortitude to withstand the national teasing that his proclivity for massages has brought about. Being a defense attorney, especially in Chicago, is stressful enough. I think he deserves some empathy. But then, I’m not his wife.
(Photo of Ksenych from her Casting 360 page.)
She will release you on your own recognizance, if you have a towel handy.
I’m sure all of her work is pro boner.
Insert appropriate screwing joke here … and here … and here … and here …….
I hope he isn’t married.
He is.
I had a day-later afterthought on this blog: So much for masseuse-client privilege.
A word to the wise should be sufficient.
Every Ukranian woman is a lawyer.
I don’t get it. Why did this justify a mistrial?
A clear explanation of why a mistrial was declared is provided here, in The Chicago Tribune:
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/ct-met-attorney-mistrial-massage-20110830,0,1225787.story
In a nutshell, the defendant, Alex Campbell, who was on trial in a criminal case for illegal sex-trafficking, claimed that his lawyer, Rathe, should have disclosed to him that he himself had patronized one of Campbell’s massage parlors, which Rathe admitted he had not disclosed. Once the prosecution witness, the 25-year-old Ukrainian masseuse, told the prosecutors that she recognized the defendant’s lawyer as a client of hers, Campbell told the judge he could no longer trust his attorney and requested a mistrial. The prosecution did not ask for a mistrial but the defendant himself did, and the judge agreed that Campbell deserved to have been informed, and that without such a disclosure by his attorney, he had a right to a mistrial. A client is entitled not only to a defense but to be defended by a lawyer he or she trusts. Rathe’s failure to disclose his personal involvement with his client’s business thus interfered with the lawyer-client relationship, which must be based on the client’s ability to trust in his counsel.
Wow… An attorney who offers a happy ending. I didn’t even think one existed…
This case definited ended prematurely. Definitely anti-climatic.
I recommend Douglas hide the superglue and carving knives. Hell hath no wrath…
Research for the case, honey. That’s it. Research.
I wish you would be smart enough to read the judge script first. There is no evidence of her doing any extras, this investigation lasted for over a year, if she would do anything illegal it would be mentioned by US Attorneys. As long as there is no evidence from the attorneys your assumptions are very inappropriate.