BY BEN L. KAUFMAN
The Cincinnati Enquirer
Troubles are mounting for veteran Walnut Hills lawyer Doris Houser Allen over her role in the jailing of an innocent man:
The Cincinnati Bar Association (CBA) has taken the unusual step of asking the Ohio Supreme Court to rethink its recent refusal to suspend Ms. Allen's law license.
Hamilton County is "looking into" the possibility of criminal charges against Ms. Allen, said Bill Breyer, chief assistant prosecutor for the appellate division.
That might include perjury, tampering with evidence and falsification, according to an attorney familiar with the case.
"My head is spinning from it," Ms. Allen said during interviews last week.
CBA says Ms. Allen dictated false charges and vouched for the lies when client Sylvia Huff filled in the affidavit required for a temporary protective order and criminal complaint for domestic violence.
Estranged boyfriend Dwayne E. Harris spent one night in jail and five weeks awaiting trial before Ms. Huff recanted and charges against Mr. Harris were dismissed.
Her testimony led to an ethics charge against Ms. Allen, and when she appeared before the Ohio Supreme Court's Board of Commissioners on Grievances and Discipline, Ms. Allen conceded:
"I shaded the facts because it's necessary to do that on a criminal complaint. . . . It was perjury, (but) my motives were pure."
Then her case took an unusual turn.
Disregarding the board's request for a six-month suspension, the Supreme Court dismissed the complaint on Aug. 5.
On Aug. 11, and for the first time in more than a decade, CBA asked the court to reconsider a disciplinary ruling:
The dismissal "appears to be an abrupt change of course from recent opinions which held that if a lawyer lies to a court, there will be a sanction."
It leaves local grievance committees and the state grievance board "in a quandary as to the limits of acceptable conduct." The Supreme Court's action "cannot be satisfactorily explained to the public."
The CBA asked the Supreme Court to suspend Ms. Allen's license for six months.
"It doesn't matter what idiotic remarks I made, I didn't commit perjury," Ms. Allen said in an interview. "I don't feel like I admitted anything. . . . I didn't lie. I've made a lot of mistakes, but this isn't the one."
Ms. Allen said she aggressively pursued Ms. Huff's interests, based on Ms. Huff's repeated claims that she felt threatened by Mr. Harris and feared he would take their three children.
She said Ms. Huff lacked funds to pursue a custody case, so she did the best she could for the $500 her client could pay: She helped her fill out the Municipal Court affidavit.
"The evidence did not show that I helped her lie or that she lied." Ms. Allen said the Supreme Court understood the evidence and her claim that she is the victim of frustrated prosecutors who manipulate women who try to recant domestic relations charges.
Ms. Allen said Ms. Huff -- faced with possible prosecution for changing her story -- insisted she told Ms. Allen that the charges were not true.
That's not what the bar association or grievance board concluded. The case began March 26, 1996, when the principal of Roberts Paideia Academy told Ms. Huff that Mr. Harris was asking to see their three children.
With her mother, Ms. Huff rushed to the school. Her mother met briefly with Mr. Harris. There were no threats or confrontations but within a day, Ms. Huff retained Ms. Allen.
Testimony by Ms. Allen and Ms. Huff agrees on these essentials: Ms. Allen and Ms. Huff walked down Court Street to the Justice Center where Ms. Allen told Ms. Huff how to fill out the affidavit. Assured by Ms. Allen that the affidavit was true, clerks issued a temporary protective order and a domestic violence complaint. Mr. Harris was arrested Nov. 8 and released on bond Nov. 9.
When it was time to testify against him, Ms. Huff told Melanie Reising, an assistant city prosecutor, that the accusations were false.
Rather than drop the case, Ms. Reising brought Ms. Huff into court where she was assured she would not be prosecuted, and she told Judge Mark Schweikert the same thing on Dec. 19.
Judge Schweikert dismissed charges against Mr. Harris and filed the original ethics complaint against Ms. Allen with CBA. The affidavit said:
"Defendant recently released from peneteniary on charge of felonious assault with gun spec. Appeared twice on 3-25 and 3-26 at Roberts Paideia Academy and threatened me and my three small children. Defendant is armed and dangerous. I fear for my childrens safety. They are afraid to attend school."
Ms. Huff said she told Ms. Allen that much of what she was dictating was false: Mr. Harris came to the school only once; he did not threaten her or the children there; she did not know whether Mr. Harris was armed and dangerous, and she did not know what a "gun specification" was.
Two investigators from CBA's ethics committee, Peter W. Swenty and Thomas R. Smith, concluded that Ms. Allen "knowingly used perjured testimony or false evidence" and "she participated in the creation of evidence which she knew was false."
CBA sent its complaint and findings to the state grievance board. Ms. Allen denied any misconduct and said she "believed Ms. Huff's statements that Dwayne Harris represented a threat to Ms. Huff and her children." Ms. Allen said she "acted to protect Ms. Huff in the only way (she) knew how."
Ms. Allen also said Ms. Huff was under "considerable pressure" from the prosecutor and testified after being "threatened with a perjury charge."
On Oct. 24, the grievance board convened in Cincinnati.
Ms. Allen testified that she told her client, "If you feel threatened, I can vouch for you for a criminal complaint and you can say you truly feel threatened and they will issue a TPO (temporary protective order) and they'll pick the guy up and then maybe he'll understand to stay away from you."
She said Ms. Huff repeatedly said she felt threatened, that Mr. Harris had been violent in the past, and taken their children once.
Ms. Allen said, "Now, down at the clerk's office they want a specific day she was threatened and so forth. I said, "So say the day you saw him.' . . . We did have to lie in it because we had to put a specific date for the threat."
Ms. Allen also renewed her claim that prosecutors threaten with perjury women who change their minds about domestic violence charges.
Ms. Huff told the board that she did not know she had signed an affidavit for a criminal complaint.
The board clearly believed Ms. Huff and asked Mr. Swenty what sanctions CBA would recommend.
"In the old days, it was a public reprimand or indefinite suspension or disbarment," Mr. Swenty replied. "I mean, then it was pretty simple. It's a little more complicated today. But I guess some sort of sanction is necessary of some kind."
