N.C. Attorney is Accused of Altering Court Documents in Plea Deal
Updated: A North Carolina lawyer has been criminally charged with altering court documents, obstruction of justice, forgery and uttering concerning a plea deal she allegedly changed in a speeding case.
Janet Pittman Reed, 47, declined to comment, saying that her lawyers had advised her not to do so, reports the Jacksonville Daily News.
The 10-year practitioner’s Florida law license was suspended earlier this year in a reciprocal discipline case concerning a 2007 order of discipline in North Carolina, according to the newspaper, and she is facing a North Carolina State Bar legal ethics hearing in November concerning allegations that she added to a plea deal without an assistant district attorney’s approval in 2007.
The criminal case against Reed will be hearing by a special prosecutor from New Hanover County, since a prosecutor from the office of Onslow County District Attorney Dewey Hudson is expected to testify against her in the case.
Meanwhile, in an unrelated matter, a disbarred New York lawyer who allegedly showed a former client a 2006 document indicating that a never-filed “case” had settled for $24,000 has been criminally charged in Nassau County, reports the New York Law Journal.
A lawyer for Bryan Holzberg, 53, says he will plead not guilty to the second-degree count of criminal possession of a forged instrument.
Updated at 2:50 p.m. to include New York Law Journal coverage.
