Probation Violation re Ex-Client Voyeurism Case Results in 15-Month Jail Term for Ind. Attorney
An Indiana lawyer had been sentenced to 15 months of probation and 3 months of electronic detention at home after his conditional guilty plea to voyeurism. A former client contended he recorded their sexual encounter without her consent. She also said he offered to trade legal services for sex.
However, William R. Wallace now is sentenced to 15 months in prison for probation violation after his guilty plea in October to voyeurism and other charges, the Evansville Courier & Press reports.
Wallace agreed to plead guilty in October to child pornography and obstruction of justice charges in exchange for the probation and home-confinement sentence, according to a WFML article on the radio station’s website and WRTV. The child porn charge resulted when police found illegal images on his home computer during a search related to the voyeurism case.
But Wallace also agreed, as part of that October deal, to plead guilty to voyeurism if a state appeals court agreed with a trial judge’s interpretation of the law. Assuming the voyeurism conviction was OK’d on appeal, the attorney’s sentence was to run concurrently with the sentence for the child porn and obstruction convictions, the WFML article explains.
Attorney Scott Danks is representing Wallace and says his client decided in the end not to appeal, the Evansville newspaper reports.
The situation changed, according to a Gibson County prosecutor, after a spot-check of Wallace’s computer revealed that he had violated his probation by using his computer for non-work-related purposes—specifically, contacting a woman on Facebook.
Another technical violation occurred, according to Danks, when Wallace left his job with an electrical company without informing probation officials. He did inform them that he was working at a new job, at a bar, approximately 10 days later.
Wallace’s law license was suspended earlier this year by the Indiana Supreme Court.
The ex-client whose complaint to authorities sparked the case said she found out about the recording when Wallace showed it to her boyfriend, the Courier & Press reported.
Additional coverage:
ABAJournal.com: “Prosecutor Candidate Accused of Accepting Sex for Fee After Ex-Client Claims Secret Tape”
Courier-Journal: “Princeton, Indiana lawyer sentenced in voyeurism case”
