A Wausau attorney faces charges for trying to get a client to buy marijuana for him. Ronald Moore is accused of using the drug buy in February to help his client win a deal with the district attorney, but prosecutors say they didn’t agree to it. UW Law School clinical professor Michele LaVigne says lawyers like Moore just can’t do whatever they want. “It’s not the wild west,” says LaVigne. “We have rules we follow.”
Moore is also charged with possessing drug paraphernalia that he got the client to bring to his law office before a planned police raid at the client’s house. LaVigne says what Moore did COULD be an ethics violation. “We’ve got certain responsibilities to our clients. We can’t be leading them down the path to get themselves into anything. And in so doing we keep ourselves out of it, too.”
Moore was unavailable for comment and his attorney declined to do so. LaVigne says there may be more to the story than we’re hearing right now. “The criminal complaint is one side of the story. It’s what the state says happened. Very often they’re sitting on more information, but they’re not required to divulge it. We have to wait and see, these things have a way of playing themselves out and sometimes take some very interesting turns.” Moore will make his initial appearance on October 20th.
Matt Lehman, WSAU