Florida lawyer Patrick Megaro is fac­ing an offi­cial com­plaint by the North Carolina State Bar for alleged­ly defraud­ing death-row exonerees Henry McCollum (pic­tured, right) and Leon Brown (pic­tured, left), and tak­ing a third of the com­pen­sa­tion grant­ed to the two men. Half-broth­ers McCollum and Brown were exon­er­at­ed in 2014 after spend­ing 30 years in prison, some on death row, for the rape and mur­der of an 11-year-old girl. Both men are intel­lec­tu­al­ly dis­abled, a fac­tor that made them more vul­ner­a­ble to wrong­ful con­vic­tion, and, the Bar com­plaint says, vul­ner­a­ble to exploita­tion by Megaro. After McCollum and Brown were exon­er­at­ed and for­mal­ly par­doned by Governor Pat McCrory, they sought com­pen­sa­tion from North Carolina for their wrong­ful con­vic­tions and incar­cer­a­tion. Megaro became McCollum’s and Brown’s lawyer in March 2015, after two women who claimed to be advo­cat­ing on behalf of the broth­ers per­suad­ed them to fire the lawyers who had been rep­re­sent­ing them in their com­pen­sa­tion action and to hire Megaro’s firm instead. The broth­ers received com­pen­sa­tion awards of $750,000, but Megaro — who the com­plaint says did vir­tu­al­ly no work on their exon­er­a­tions or com­pen­sa­tion cas­es — took $250,000 in fees from each man. Within sev­en months, McCollum was out of mon­ey and tak­ing out high-inter­est loans that Megaro arranged and approved. Megaro also nego­ti­at­ed a pro­posed set­tle­ment of the broth­ers’ wrong­ful pros­e­cu­tion law­suit in which he was to receive $400,000 of a $1 mil­lion pay­ment. The com­plaint alleges that Megaro com­mit­ted 16 eth­i­cal vio­la­tions, includ­ing lying to judges, dou­ble-billing his clients, and engag­ing in fraud by sign­ing for loans with a 42% inter­est rate. It also alleges that he vio­lat­ed his duty to act com­pe­tent­ly when he failed to deter­mine the police depart­men­t’s insur­ance pol­i­cy lim­its before agree­ing to set­tle the broth­ers’ wrong­ful pros­e­cu­tion case. McCollum expressed his dis­ap­point­ment with Megaro, say­ing, ​“He took mon­ey that he should have nev­er took. I could have that mon­ey right now.” According to the Marshall Project, ​“Wednesday’s com­plaint begins a legal process sim­i­lar to a civ­il law­suit that will like­ly cul­mi­nate in a pub­lic tri­al of the charges, with three mem­bers of the state’s Disciplinary Hearing Commission sit­ting as judge and jury.” Megaro — whose law part­ner derid­ed the dis­ci­pli­nary action as ​“a polit­i­cal pros­e­cu­tion” — could face dis­bar­ment if he is found guilty.

(Joseph Neff, Lawyer Accused of Preying on Vulnerable Clients, The Marshall Project, September 26, 2018.) See Innocence.

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