Pennsylvania county mails capital defense lawyer's checks to another person with same name
A Pennsylvania county intending to pay a lawyer for capital defense work sent two checks for more than $40,000 to the wrong person.
Luzerne County sent the checks to Pittston mason Bernard Brown rather than Carbondale lawyer Bernard Brown. The Citizens’ Voice, the Wilkes Barre Times-Leader and the Associated Press have stories.
The bricklayer’s wife, Bonnie Brown, told the publications she recently spoke with the lawyer, and they planned to meet at the courthouse to straighten out the mix-up. Lawyer Brown represents double murder suspect Hugo Selenski, whose capital trial was scheduled to start Wednesday.
Bonnie Brown said she voided the first check for about $3,400 with a red marker, but called the lawyer after a second check for more than $36,000 arrived in the mail. Lawyer Bernard Brown is to be paid $85 an hour for his work on the Selenski case, the Times-Leader says. The fee cap is $40,000, but it can be raised for good cause.
Bonnie Brown said her husband’s name may have been in the county database because he was paid to work at a polling precinct on election day. “Who sends that kind of money through the mail in this day and age when everything is direct-deposited?” Bonnie Brown said in an interview with the Citizens’ Voice.
