Story last updated at 11/21/2008 - 9:36 am
Bar groups seek Stevens law license suspension
ANCHORAGE - Bar associations in Alaska, California and Washington, D.C., are seeking the law license suspension of U.S. Sen. Ted Stevens.
Stevens, 85, the longest-serving Republican in Senate history, was found guilty by a federal jury last month of failing to disclose more than $250,000 in gifts on Senate disclosure forms.
Stevens on Tuesday lost his re-election bid to Democrat Mark Begich, the mayor of Anchorage.
Stevens was admitted to the bars of California and the District of Columbia in 1951 but is on the inactive roster there as well as Alaska. He has given no indication that he wants to resume a law career.
The Alaska Bar Association on Oct. 30 asked the Alaska Supreme Court to immediately impose an interim suspension of Stevens' law license. Stevens' attorney, Timothy McKeever, objected, and the court gave him until Nov. 24 to prepare a defense.
Dane Dauphine, supervising trial counsel for the State Bar of California, said he moved against Stevens' license two weeks ago after receiving official verdict documents.
The California State Bar Court, which will rule on the interim suspension, has not yet acted against Stevens, Dauphine told the Anchorage Daily News.
In Washington, Gene Shipp, bar counsel to the D.C. Bar, said he plans to file by today a certified copy of Stevens' conviction with the District of Columbia Court of Appeals. The filing likely will result in the automatic, interim suspension of Stevens' license pending further proceedings, he said.
"We're going along with California and Alaska," Shipp said. "Steve's just faster off the mark than I am," he said, referring to Stephen Van Goor, the Alaska bar counsel.
Stevens is appealing his conviction. If the verdict is overturned, the bar officials said, Stevens would be entitled to reinstatement.
For licensing, the jury verdict, and not imposition of sentence or a formal order of conviction by the judge, is sufficient to require a suspension in all three jurisdictions, the officials said.
U.S. District Court Judge Emmet Sullivan, the trial judge in Stevens' case, has not set a sentencing date.
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