Can I Get a Witness? Muncie Attorney Faces Criminal Charges

Former Delaware County Prosecuting attorney, Michael J. Alexander, who now apparently does criminal law, was arrested yesterday at his office by county and federal agents. He is accused of witness tampering, bribery and/or conspiracy for these offenses - The Star Press says he was charged with bribery as a class C felony (Ex-county prosecutor, private investigator charged in bribery probe). Delaware County shows that James D. Luttrull, acting as a special prosecutor, filed for an arrest warrant on Tuesday. The case is pending in Delaware Circuit Court III before judge Robert L. Barnet.

The account of the crime in the Star Press is a little to circuitous for me the follow, but at heart, Alexander is accused of employing a private investigator to act as a go between to funnel payments to a witness in one of his client’s case. I say the story is not clear in that is start out saying that Alexander’s client (Bryant) was paying a guy, Stanley Chrisp and his 2 sons $20,000 to change their testimony-which had been against Bryant, but the story ends with Chrisp recording a conference with Alexander in which Alexander is request for an accounting of his $50,000 (!) fee, at which point Alexander allegedly agrees to refund $5,000. I just can’t see how it was that Chrisp paid $50K when he was getting bought off for part of $20k, but I am probably missing something.

Apparently some discussions happened between the PI working for Alexander, without direct involvement of Alexander - sounds like a lot of folks with felony convictions and/or pending charges making accusations of payoffs against an attorney - Should be interesting to watch.

What I found interesting about this case is that this Michael J. Alexander is the same attorney who made an appearance in the Indiana Supreme Court case Outback Steakhouse vs. Markley (PDF -856 N.E.2d 65 (IND. 2007)). This is another case involving funny business with a witness: A waitress at Outback was interviewed by Alexander and his investigator, but never disclosed to the other side. This later caused the verdict to come undone:

The alleged injured parties were hit by a person served alcohol at the restaurant. Their counsel did not reveal that the restaurant’s waitress said she served the person alcohol when intoxicated. She then deposed that he was not intoxicated, after which she testified, at trial, he was intoxicated. The supreme court held not identifying her in response to the restaurant’s interrogatory as one with knowledge of relevant facts breached discovery duties, whether or not counsel intended to call her, and, with a closing argument that the restaurant did not keep its promise that the waitress would say the person was not intoxicated, was misconduct allowing relief from judgment, as the restaurant’s defense was prejudiced.

(Lexis case summary).

This entry was posted on Thursday, February 28th, 2008 at 9:30 am and is filed under Criminal Times. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.