Attorney’s Law License Suspended Over Baseball

By Shane Anthony, St. Louis Post-Dispatch

Mar. 27–ST. CHARLES COUNTY — The Missouri Supreme Court has suspended for one year the law license of a St. Charles County lawyer accused of having a client get a Terry Bradshaw-autographed baseball for a prosecutor.

The lawyer, David A. Dalton II, already had signed an agreement with the U.S. attorney’s office not to practice law for one year beginning June 25, 2007. The Supreme Court order suspends his law license for at least one year starting March 6.

The order cites professional misconduct.

Documents filed with the court say Dalton and another lawyer, Brian Zink, asked client Mary Hart to get a baseball signed by Bradshaw, the retired Pittsburgh Steelers quarterback who is alleged to be Hart’s godfather.

In exchange for the ball, the documents said, assistant prosecutor Matthew Thornhill, now an associate circuit judge, reduced felony charges against Hart to misdemeanors.

The Supreme Court has taken no action against Thornhill’s or Zink’s licenses. A law license is a requirement for being a judge.

Dalton and his attorney could not be reached for comment.

Thornhill, of St. Charles, declined to comment, citing a code of conduct requiring judges not to publicly comment on pending proceedings or on personnel subject to the judge’s direction and control.

Zink could not be reached for comment, nor could the law firm he and Dalton had worked for, Dalton Coyne Cundiff and Hillemann, with offices in Lake Saint Louis and Warrenton. News of the baseball matter broke shortly after Thornhill was elected associate circuit judge in November 2006. He resigned as an assistant prosecutor the next month.

Thornhill’s former boss, St. Charles County prosecutor Jack Banas, subsequently said he would disqualify Thornhill from hearing any criminal cases. Thornhill now hears only civil cases.

The agreements by Zink and Dalton with federal authorities stipulate that they will not be prosecuted on charges they lied to federal investigators. They also agreed to cooperate with the Missouri Supreme Court and the Missouri State Bar Disciplinary Commission with its investigation.

Dalton appeared before a disciplinary panel in Clayton in January.

santhony@post-dispatch.com — 636-255-7209

—–

To see more of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, or to subscribe to the newspaper, go to http://www.stltoday.com.

Copyright (c) 2008, St. Louis Post-Dispatch

Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services.

For reprints, email tmsreprints@permissionsgroup.com, call 800-374-7985 or 847-635-6550, send a fax to 847-635-6968, or write to The Permissions Group Inc., 1247 Milwaukee Ave., Suite 303, Glenview, IL 60025, USA.