74-Year-Old Lawyer Claims He Shot Ex-Client in Self-Defense
A 74-year-old lawyer who is the longest-serving state senator in North Carolina claims he shot a former client Sunday evening in self-defense.
Prosecutors have not decided whether to charge Sen. R.C. Soles for the shooting, StarNewsOnline reports. Soles’ lawyer, Joe Cheshire of Raleigh, said Soles shot the former client as he and another man tried to kick in the door of Soles’ home in Tabor City.
The former client, Thomas Kyle Blackburn, was shot in the leg and released from the hospital on Monday, the News & Observer reports. Blackburn had also been arrested last year in another incident at Soles’ home and charged with trespassing and attempted breaking and entering, according to the story. The charges were later dropped.
Cheshire said the attempted break-in was caught on surveillance video, but the shooting occurred outside of camera range, according to StarNewsOnline. Other reports said the shooting was captured on the video.
“He was enormously frightened and he went outside to scare them away with a pistol,” Cheshire said of his client in the interview with StarNewsOnline. “He shot once in the air. They confronted him and he shot, and whether the young man was shot directly or whether it ricocheted I don’t know. … He was trying to run them off his property.”
Cheshire said Soles doesn’t have a family, so he tries to help neighbors and clients, including some with criminal records, by giving them thousands of dollars for rent, college tuition and cars, according to the Associated Press.
Soles has called local police at least nine times in the last two years to report trespassers. Often he did not press charges, but police reports say he did pepper-spray one trespasser, AP says. Police are also investigating Soles’ relationship with a former client who claims Soles molested him when he was 15 years old. The man recanted last week, saying he was high on drugs when he made the claim in a television interview.
Soles’ 97-year-old father, Robert Soles Sr., told StarNewsOnline that his son’s generosity has brought trespassers to the lawyer’s property. “It’s a bunch of drunk heads and drug heads trying to force him to keep giving them money,” he said. “That’s my personal opinion.”
