Legal News

From Prosecutor to Perp: The Robert Simels Story

By Ashby Jones

It’s nothing particularly new to hear of a lawyer accused or convicted of criminal behavior. (Some days it feels like half our posts are devoted to such tales.) But, on the other hand, it’s not particularly common to hear of former prosecutors getting in trouble with the law. And when they do, folks are often quick to point out the irony, if not the hypocrisy involved.

Such is the case with the story involving prosecutor-turned-convict Robert Simels.

An NYT story from over the weekend opens:

In the early 1970s, from a perch on the 57th floor of the World Trade Center, a handpicked team of young prosecutors chased after crooked public officials in a city teeming with them.

Fresh out of law school, Robert M. Simels jumped at the chance to investigate that corruption. A bulldog in an office of strivers, he threw himself at big assignments, undaunted - even excited - by the prominence of the men he pursued: a judge, an organized crime chief and a well-known city priest.

"He was straight as an arrow," said Paul W. Pickelle, a prosecutor who worked in the office.

Fast forward some thirty-odd years, however, and the Robert Simels story has taken a strange, unexpected turn.

Last week, a federal judge sentenced Mr. Simels, 62, to 14 years in prison for witness tampering and bribery. According to the NYT story, Simels left behind a long trail of damning evidence. And when he took the stand in his own defense, he “stumbled badly.”

In one exchange during trial, a prosecutor, Steven L. D'Allesandro, asked him: "If a person offers a witness money, $5,000 or $10,000 or $20,000 for their testimony, that is a crime, yes or no."

Simels answered, "I would assume it would be."

Federal judge John Gleeson warned Simels from the bench: "Your career is at stake," he said. "Your liberty is at stake." A jury took nearly two weeks to convict.

So what’s the moral to the story involving Simels? One might be that he was too aggressive; too determined to win; too loyal to his clients.

"He had arrogance, and he pushed the envelope," said Ronald Rubinstein, a lawyer who worked with Simels on several cases. "He was a warrior, and that's why I like him. He served a lot of clients well."

Richard A. Nachman, who headed the Manhattan bureau where Simels worked, said of his employee: "He was quite an aggressive young fellow - sometimes, I felt, overaggressive. If he saw a case that involved someone of some importance, he would leap at that and go to work. I don't say that in a derogatory way."

Full post as published by Law Blog - WSJ.com on December 14, 2009 (boomark / email).