A veteran Orange County prosecutor accused of illegally withholding evidence from a defense attorney got a proposed one-year suspension of her law license cut in half following an appeal with the state bar, according to records obtained Monday.
A trial judge recommended a one-year suspension in October, prompting Deputy District Attorney Sandra Nassar to appeal to a three-judge panel of the state Bar of California. On Thursday, the panel recommended a six-month suspension.
The panel of judges in the appeal rejected Nassar’s arguments that she did nothing wrong.
Nassar can appeal to the state Supreme Court, which would take up a review in any event due to the length of the proposed punishment.
Former Orange County Superior Court Judge Thomas Goethals, who has since been appointed to the Fourth District Court of Appeals, found that Nassar committed misconduct in 2013 when she withheld evidence of letters two defendants wrote to each other while in custody about a child-abuse case.
Lori Louisa Pincus accepted a plea bargain from prosecutors admitting she tried to help her boyfriend at the time, Carmen William Iacullo II, sidestep legal trouble for abusing her 5-year-old son with beatings, stabbings and burning him with cigarettes.
Pincus was sentenced to two years in jail that she had already served in the case and Iacullo eventually accepted a 12-year prison sentence to avoid a life sentence in the case, his defense attorney Joe Dane said.
Nassar had placed what is known as a “mail cover” on the two defendants, which means any correspondence from the two while in custody is intercepted by law enforcement first.
Between July 2011 and August 2012, Dane “repeatedly requested” evidence from Nassar, according to the state bar. In April 2013, Nassar rotated to a new position in the District Attorney’s Office, so a new prosecutor, Jennifer Duke, was assigned to the case.
When Nassar advised Duke about the intercepting of correspondence from the inmates, Duke asked if the evidence had been sent to Dane.
“Why would I,” she replied, according to the state bar.
Duke consulted with her boss, who said the evidence should have been sent to Dane, so Duke turned it all over to him.
Nassar, during an evidentiary hearing, testified that only one of the letters contained exculpatory evidence for Iacullo. Pincus had said in the letters that Iacullo wasn’t around during the time her son was being abused.
When Dane asked Nassar at the hearing why she didn’t turn over the letters after Pincus pleaded guilty, Nassar said she “had not finished turning over all of the discovery on the case,” and added that she did not turn over the letters because “it relates to trial strategy.”
Nassar argued in part that she was attempting to protect the victim, who she claims the defendants were trying to find, but the state bar concluded, “the only evidence supporting that claim is Nassar’s own testimony.”
Nassar argued that when she referred to “trial strategy,” she meant she was trying to protect the victim.
“Nassar allowed her duty to the victim to overshadow her duty to the defendant,” the state bar said in its ruling on the appeal.
She also argued it was a timing issue as the law requires her to hand over the evidence 30 days before trial, but the trial date had been rescheduled several times and a firm date had not been agreed on. The state bar also rejected that argument.
“She testified at her trial that she would undertake the same actions again, and that she fully complied with her legal and ethical obligations,” the state bar wrote. “She is simply wrong.”