February 18, 2004

Lawyer Accused of Padding Bills

   By Oliver Mackson
   Times Herald-Record
   omackson@th-record.com
   
   Poughkeepsie defense lawyer Donald Roth may face more trouble besides five years in federal prison for trying to submarine a Newburgh drug case.
 

   For months, Dutchess County prosecutors have been examining Roth's billing records, which showed him working as much as 25 hours a day on court-assigned cases. Federal prosecutors used those records to attack Roth's credibility during a trial that ended last week. Roth and a private investigator, David St. John of Millerton, were convicted of conspiracy to tamper with witnesses and obstruction of justice.
 

   "I can confirm that we have had an active, ongoing investigation into these facts," Dutchess County District Attorney William Grady said yesterday. "At this point in time, I cannot say that they will go into the grand jury, although that is certainly a potential possibility."
 

   A senior Dutchess County prosecutor, Edward Whitesell, monitored part of the 10-week trial in White Plains. He was in the courtroom when Roth's billing records were discussed.
 

   Roth was part of a panel of lawyers who took assignments for defendants who couldn't afford a lawyer.
 

   On May 25, 2001, "Donald Roth became Superman and he billed 25½ hours in a day," a federal prosecutor told the jury during closing arguments in Roth's trial last week. "He was padding the bill, and that's dishonest."
 

   The jury also saw copies of bills that Roth submitted for work he did in April 2001. One day showed 24 hours of work; another showed 24.6 hours.
 

   Roth said he couldn't discuss the Dutchess County investigation on orders from his own lawyer, Larry Hochheiser.
 

   Hochheiser said he hadn't been contacted by anyone from the Dutchess County district attorney's office. But he said the bills could be explained. In one case, eight hours meant to be billed on one day was mistakenly lumped into another day's bill.
 

   And some bills might reflect phone conversations with clients that didn't actually add up to a full hour.
 

   "The point is that there was no intention to mislead anybody," Hochheiser said, "and all of the services were performed."
 

   Roth, 34, has been practicing law in New York for three years, according to state records. He drives a car with vanity plates that say "AQUITAL." Before his conviction, he had a good run on big cases in Orange County's courts.
 

   Last year, he won an acquittal in a Town of Newburgh murder case. In 2002, he got prosecutors to plea-bargain a City of Newburgh murder case to manslaughter. That meant five years in prison for the killer, Antonio Bryant, instead of 25 to life.
 

   In the Bryant case, witnesses who had identified Bryant as the shooter changed their stories. Later that year, Roth and St. John were arrested by the feds, on charges that they tried to get a man named Charles "Flip" Melvin to change his story about buying drugs from Raymond Bryant, Antonio's brother.
 

   Roth faces disbarment in New York, and he and St. John face up to five years in prison when they're sentenced June 18.
 

   Roth had several cases pending in Orange County Court. He represented a man who was scheduled to go on trial yesterday on charges of rape, kidnapping and assault with a guitar.
 

   At Roth's request, his cases were reassigned to new lawyers yesterday.

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