The Washington State Bar Association has dismissed a grievance by a brother of a former deputy prosecutor alleging that Clark County Prosecutor Tony Golik and two of his deputies violated the state’s rules of professional conduct for lawyers.
Mountain View High School teacher John Harvey filed the complaint Jan. 23 while his brother, former Deputy Prosecutor Alan Harvey, was being investigated for alleged professional misconduct. Alan Harvey was fired from the Prosecuting Attorney’s Office in May for insubordination.
John Harvey accused Golik, Chief Criminal Deputy Prosecutor Scott Jackson and Deputy Prosecutor Anne Cruser of seeking to improperly seal court records. Also, he accused Golik of protecting defense attorney Jeff Sowder, a former political rival of Golik’s who later dropped out of the 2010 prosecutor’s race and endorsed Golik.
“Based on the information we have received, insufficient evidence exists to prove unethical conduct by Golik by a clear preponderance of the evidence in this matter,” WSBA senior disciplinary counsel Linda Eide wrote in a June 26 letter to Golik.
Eide wrote similar letters to Jackson and Cruser.
Golik, Jackson, Cruser and Sowder all were involved in a court case that apparently precipitated the probe into Alan Harvey’s professional conduct.
Alan Harvey, who started at the prosecutor’s office in 1999, was placed on paid administrative leave Dec. 11 for reasons related to his conduct at a Dec. 5 resentencing hearing for convicted child rapist Steven Dillon.
A Clark County jury convicted Dillon in 2009 of both kidnapping and raping a 13-year-old boy.
The state Court of Appeals later ruled that Dillon wasn’t guilty of kidnapping because the boy consented to go to Dillon’s home. As a result, Dillon had to be resentenced, even though it didn’t change his term: 25 years.
During the Dec. 5 hearing, Alan Harvey brought attention to records in Dillon’s 2008 rape case and related 2011 perjury case that Harvey said were improperly sealed. The sealed records consisted of Oct. 4, 2011, motions by Harvey to disqualify Sowder from representing Dillon. In the motions, Harvey accused Sowder of being an accomplice to perjury in the 2011 case.
Golik has said there was no evidence to support Alan Harvey’s accusation that Sowder committed perjury. Furthermore, Golik said, Harvey didn’t get his permission before filing the motion to disqualify.
He said he ordered Cruser to contact Sowder and, by agreement, strike the motion and ask then-Judge John Wulle to seal it. Apparently, Golik first asked Alan Harvey to strike and seal the motion, but Harvey asked that someone else do it “to avoid a possible charge by Sowder that he had engaged in unethical conduct by filing the motion in the first place,” according to WSBA’s letter to Golik. Wulle agreed to seal the motion on Oct. 6, 2011, during a closed hearing.
Dillon and the victim weren’t notified of the court proceeding, and there was no written explanation to support sealing the court documents, as required by court rules.
Golik said he wanted to protect Sowder from the repercussions of such an allegation and to protect his office from a potential libel lawsuit by Sowder.
Indeed, Sowder has said that if Cruser had not moved to strike and seal Harvey’s motion containing the allegation of perjury, he would have sued the prosecutor’s office for libel. As of last week, he said he was still considering filing his own bar complaint against Harvey for making the false accusation.
Eide noted that Alan Harvey “was silent about any problem with the sealing of the disqualification motion for two years.”
“We think the evidence supports Golik’s claim that he wanted to seal the motion (Alan Harvey) filed to prevent harm to (Harvey) and to the office based on your unsubstantiated allegation that Sowder had subjorned perjury,” she wrote.
The issue resurfaced on Dec. 5, 2013. Alan Harvey and Sowder appeared in front of Judge Richard Melnick to discuss Dillon’s resentencing in the rape case.
Harvey again sought to disqualify Sowder, this time from the rape case. Two of Harvey’s supporting arguments was that Sowder had been involved in Dillon’s perjury case and had been involved in the motion to seal the related court records. Melnick agreed to disqualify Sowder because Sowder could be a potential witness, but the judge said he found no evidence Sowder had committed wrongdoing.
Melnick then assigned Vancouver attorney Bob Vukanovich to replace Sowder as Dillon’s attorney for the resentencing.
Vukanovich said that when he learned about the sealed records, he decided to ask Melnick to vacate Dillon’s perjury conviction.
Melnick dismissed the perjury case against Dillon on Jan. 27, saying the way the records were sealed represented a “manifest injustice.”
Melnick also ordered that Harvey’s motion to disqualify Sowder in the perjury case be unsealed.
At the time the grievance was filed, John Harvey declined to answer whether Alan Harvey had played a role in the decision to file the bar complaint or its composition.
John Harvey did not immediately respond to an email from The Columbian on Tuesday.
