Utah defense attorney Geoffrey Clark was back in the news this month after the lawyer was arrested in a drug sting — Clark allegedly offered his legal services in exchange for drugs.
Clark has a long history of accusation of unethical acts from suborning perjury to driving under the influence of marijuana. One of those cases saw Clark being acquitted of suborning perjury in a case involving an animal rights terrorist.
In 1997, Clark represented animal rights extremist Trev Poulson, then 19, who tried to burn down a fur store. A security guard at Montgomery Fur Company in West Haven, Utah, observed three people trying to light gasoline they had spread on and around the store.
Poulson’s accomplices in the attempted arson, Cameron Kraus and Bret Walton, both agreed to plead guilty to aggravate arson and received sentences of just 30 days in jail and 30 days of home confinement. Poulson rejected a plea bargain and went to trial. His girlfriend, Gretta Schin, testified that at the time Poulson was supposed to be trying to commit arson, he was in fact with her.
The jury didn’t believe any of it, and convicted Poulson. He was sentenced to two years in jail.
But shortly after his conviction, Poulson reached an agreement with prosecutors to testify against Clark. As a result, Poulson served only a few months in jail before his sentence was suspended and he was given 36 months probation.
At Clark’s 1999 perjury trial, Poulson testified that he wanted to take the same plea bargain deal offered to Kraus and Walton, but that Clark had a vendetta against the prosecutor and talked Poulson into going to trial.
Poulson testified that he and Schin conspired to have Schin falsely testify that the two were together at the time of the arson (both Poulson and Schin were granted immunity from prosecution on perjury charges before testifying). But Poulson’s testimony backfired against prosecutor’s in Clark’s case. Poulson testified that Clark had coached them on how to lie, but said he couldn’t remember if the idea to produce Schin as a false alibi witness was his or Clark’s.
The jury in Clark’s case, as in Poulson’s case, simply didn’t believe either Poulson or Schin. The jury foreman told the Associated Press that neither Poulson nor Schin were credible.
Clark was acquitted on all charges.
Sources:
Attorney acquitted on perjury charge. Associated Press, April 24, 1999.
Attorney’s former clients say they were told to lie. Associated Press, December 2, 1998.
‘Bad-boy’ lawyer has own legal woes. Stephen Hunt, The Salt Lake Tribune, November 26, 2004.