PHOENIX â The attorney for embattled state Rep. David Stringer said Thursday the House Ethics Committee can have a document it is demanding â if it goes to court.
Carmen Chenal told Capitol Media Services the letter at issue, from the District of Columbia Bar Association, was provided to her only on the condition that its contents be kept confidential according to the barâs rules.
That letter, she said, declared that the bar had looked into Stringerâs 1983 arrest on sex charges â including one for possession of child pornography â and concluded there was no âmoral turpitudeâ and nothing in the incident that made him unfit to practice law.
Chenal said she was able to furnish it to the State Bar of Arizona, which was conducting its own probe of Stringer earlier this year, only after Judge William OâNeil, the presiding disciplinary judge for Arizona, issued a protective order.
âOur hands are tied,â she said.
Her comments come less than 24 hours after the Ethics Committee voted to demand the letter with no promise of confidentiality.
But Chenal said even before that vote she told the attorney hired by the panel, Joe Kanefield, that all he needs to do is obtain a court order.
Thatâs not to say she wants everything in the letter out in public. She said the document âincludes references to sensitive personal matters that have since been expunged from court records in Maryland,â and that there are âa few words (in it) that can be misinterpreted.â
Rep. T.J. Shope, R-Coolidge, who chairs the Ethics Committee, said the panel should not have to go to court to get the document.
Shope questioned whether a judge has any effect on a subpoena issued by the Legislature.
âIf it did, it would raise serious separation of powers concerns,â he said.
The Ethics Committee is investigating charges filed against Stringer, a Prescott Republican, by two of his colleagues.
One, advanced by Rep. Kelly Townsend, R-Mesa, came after public disclosure of the 1983 arrest in Baltimore. Stringer has not disputed the arrest but said that he was never convicted of anything.
But there was some kind of court action against him. Chenal acknowledged he was required to do community service, but she said the child pornography charge was dismissed because there was no evidence presented that he had such materials. âIt was an allegation,â she said.
The court records were ordered expunged after that community services was completed.
Chenal said the fact that the D.C. bar investigated and allowed Stringer to continue to practice law proves there wasnât much behind the charges.
âThis guy didnât go out and violate a woman,â she said. âDo you think that a bar would have allowed him to practice law if there was anything bad?â
The second charge, by Rep. Reginald Bolding, D-Laveen, stems from comments Stringer made both in Prescott and to some students at Arizona State University about immigration, race and assimilation.
Chenal said sheâs not particularly worried about the second charge, because anything Stringer said is protected by the right of free speech. She said the focus is more likely to be on the 1983 arrest.
