Government

John Pierce's Jan 6 Clients Being Repped In Court By NOT A LAWYER. The Government Noticed.

Also Pierce refused the vax and has COVID. Maybe???

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John Pierce

How is every story about John Pierce even weirder than it looks when you scan the headline?

Last week at a hearing for Capitol Riot defendant Shane Jenkins, Pierce’s colleague Ryan Marshall informed the court that his boss would not be present in court because he was extremely sick with COVID.

“Mr. Pierce is in the hospital, we believe, with COVID-19, on a ventilator, non-responsive,” Marshall said, as reported by national security journalist Marcy Wheeler.

When asked by U.S. District Judge Amit Mehta if another barred attorney could take over the case, not to mention the 15 other Capitol Riot defendants currently represented by Pierce, Marshall replied that he himself was not barred in DC.

Which was true, as far as it goes. But he might have left out one or two tiny details.

To wit, it’s not clear that Ryan Marshall is barred in any jurisdiction, or indeed that he will ever be eligible to be a member of the bar anywhere. Because Marshall is currently under indictment in Pennsylvania for taking part in a scheme to defraud a dying nonagenarian grandfather. Allegedly, Marshall abused his position as a law clerk in the Fayette County courthouse to get a judge to sign off on a defective guardianship document, allowing a third party to loot the man’s assets in the days before he died while his wife was barred from his hospital room.

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“The judge, trusting his law clerk, signed the order,” said Fayette County District Attorney Richard Bower.

And to top it off, when investigators searched Marshall’s phone, they found evidence that he’d secretly recorded court proceedings and was charged with unlawful use of an audio device.

If Marshall ever harbored ambition to be admitted to the practice of law, he should probably have refrained from taking advantage of his position of trust in the courthouse. Allegedly!

Nonetheless, Marshall appeared on Pierce’s behalf at hearings for two January 6 defendants and then at a reverse-proffer session for a third. And if Marshall thought that the government wouldn’t notice that he was not an IRL attorney, he was wrong.

“It is unclear if and when Mr. Marshall will be able to obtain a bar license, given that Mr. Marshall currently faces felony criminal charges in two cases in the Court of Common Pleas of Fayette County, Pennsylvania,” the US Attorney wrote in a Notice Regarding Defense Counsel John Pierce, Esq. filed this morning in the case of January 6 defendant John Lesperance.

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“From the government’s perspective, given Mr. Pierce’s reported illness and the fact that Mr. Marshall is not a licensed attorney, this case is effectively at a standstill,” they continued. “Although Mr. Marshall has been the government’s main or sole point of contact for many of the defendants represented by Mr. Pierce, the government does not believe it appropriate to continue to communicate with him in Mr. Pierce’s absence, during which he would necessarily be acting without supervision by a licensed attorney.”

But it gets weirder! Because no one appears to even know if Pierce has COVID at all.

On August 24, Marshall told attorneys for the government that Pierce had been in an accident and been rushed to the hospital. On the 25th, he said his boss was on a ventilator. And on the 26th he said he’d heard that Pierce was suffering from COVID, but also maybe not. Meanwhile, the government notes that NPR journalist Tom Dreisbach reports that Pierce is either “suffering from dehydration and exhaustion” or hospitalized with COVID, but not on a ventilator.

Just as well Ryan Marshall has no professional obligation of candor before the court.

We will not speculate on the particulars of Mr. Pierce’s diagnosis, since this is undoubtedly a HIPAA violation. AHEM. We wish him a speedy recovery in any event.

But if reports that he is suffering from coronavirus are correct, let us hope that MAGA is stronger than karma, since Pierce’s social media in the past months has been littered with anti-vaxx comments, including a memorable tweet boasting that “the entire 82nd Airborne couldn’t make me get an experimental government vaccine stuck in my arm.”

In the meanwhile, as the government points out, “the defendant is effectively without an attorney, as Mr. Pierce currently cannot be contacted and Mr. Marshall cannot provide legal advice or services.” And that goes for the other 15 January 6 Pierce defendants, too.

Well, good luck to ’em!

US v. Lesperance [Docket via Court Listener]
Fayette County court assistant, law clerk accused of defrauding widow, late husband [Trib Live]

Elizabeth Dye lives in Baltimore where she writes about law and politics.

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