Ohio lawyer disciplined for intercepting emails

COLUM­BUS, Ohio (AP) — The Ohio Supreme Court is tem­porar­ily sus­pend­ing the law license of a for­mer state lawyer who was fired for inter­cept­ing sen­si­tive emails between Ohio pub­lic safety employ­ees and investigators.

The court on Thurs­day sus­pended Joshua Engel's law license for six months for vio­lat­ing pro­fes­sional con­duct rules when he worked as the Ohio Depart­ment of Pub­lic Safety's chief legal counsel.

Engel pre­vi­ously pleaded guilty to three mis­de­meanor counts of dis­clos­ing con­fi­den­tial infor­ma­tion. He was sen­tenced to $750 and sus­pended jail time of 30 days on each count. He also agreed to coop­er­ate with state inves­ti­ga­tions regard­ing the email inter­cep­tions and a botched drug sting at the governor's residence.

A court board had noted that Engel's actions didn't ben­e­fit him or harm any­one else.

A mes­sage was left Thurs­day for Engel.

Posted by Adam Fox on May 17 2012. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.