Summary: An attorney has lost his appeal to overturn a harassment conviction that stemmed from his licking a former client on the ear.
According to the Associated Press, a Hawaiian attorney will not get away with licking a former client on her ear.
Lawrence McCreery was found guilty of harassment in 2012 for licking a former female client on the ear. The judge called McCreery, who was 64 years old at the time, a “dirty old man.” According to a 2012 article by the Huffington Post, the client was only 21 years old at the time of the incident.
McCreery appealed to the Intermediate Court of Appeals, which upheld the conviction by the lower court. The court specifically found that McCreery, an attorney in Kauai, intended to harass, annoy, or alarm the former client when he licked her on her ear.
Read about the 2012 incident here.
The woman testified during the bench trial, explaining that she had hired McCreery as her attorney in a child custody dispute. According to the appeals court ruling, “The witness testified that she went to McCreery’s office to pick up some papers and that, after McCreery made copies of the papers, he stood up, touched her hand, and said, ‘You look so good…Too bad you’re married.” The woman laughed the advance off and informed McCreery that she was a happily married woman.
However, McCreery then took things too far, hugging the client and licking the back of her ear. Per Diem Fifth Circuit District Court Judge Frank Rothschild previously commented in 2012, “Quite frankly, these are the actions of a dirty old man.”
McCreery denied that he ever licked the woman and said that she was the one who went in for a hug. However, both courts disagreed with McCreery.
McCreery was ordered to pay a $250 fine for the harassment charges.
When McCreery appealed through his attorney, Michael Soong, he argued that the judge mistakenly failed to find a specific finding of intent. However, the appeals court ruled that the judge’s “general finding of guilt was sufficient to support his conviction.”
A Utah woman was arrested for pretending to be a lawyer just a couple of weeks ago.
It appears that McCreery will be able to continue practicing law. He may just want keep his clients at arms’ length—literally.
Photo credit: bossip.com
Source: Associated Press