Ethics

Lawyer reinstated after Pringles can poop prank

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Pringles can

An Ohio lawyer has been reinstated to practice after a suspension for tossing a poop-filled Pringles can into the parking lot of a victims advocacy center. (Image from Shutterstock)

An Ohio lawyer has been reinstated to practice after a suspension for tossing a poop-filled Pringles can into the parking lot of a victims advocacy center.

Lawyer Jack Allen Blakeslee, who formerly practiced law in Caldwell, Ohio, was reinstated following a suspension imposed in November, the Ohio Supreme court announced June 18.

The Columbus Dispatch has coverage via How Appealing.

Blakeslee was suspended in November 2023 for one year, with six months stayed, on the condition that he engage in no further misconduct. The Ohio Supreme Court said he had complied.

The victims advocacy center’s executive director said she saw Blakesleee throw the can into the parking lot of the Haven of Hope victims advocacy center in Cambridge, Ohio, on Nov. 30, 2021. She had attended hearings in a murder case in which Blakeslee represented the defendant and had planned to attend a pretrial hearing that day.

Blakeslee testified in his disciplinary hearing that he had engaged in similar misconduct on at least 10 other occasions, and that he randomly chose the locations. He specifically denied knowing that he had tossed the can into the parking lot of Haven of Hope.

He also testified that he had received treatment for post-traumatic stress disorder after serving in Vietnam, but he did not try to establish his disorder as a mitigating factor.

He had no other discipline during “a distinguished criminal-defense trial practice for more than four decades,” the Ohio Supreme Court had said at the time of the suspension.

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