By Mark Wineka
mwineka@salisburypost.com
An assistant U.S. attorney, whose state bar license was suspended in 2003, continued to prosecute cases for the Middle District of North Carolina through February of this year.
David P. Folmar Jr. had his N.C. bar license administratively suspended Nov. 14, 2003, for failure to comply with continuing legal education requirements.
The N.C. State Bar says “suspended” means the member is not currently eligible to practice law in North Carolina. “Disbarred” means the license has been revoked.
Folmar apparently tried federal cases for more than five years despite a suspended license that never was returned to “active.”
In a statement provided Wednesday to the Post, U.S. Attorney Anna Mills Wagoner said “after a brief internal investigation, Folmar was relieved from practicing law on behalf of the Unites States Attorney’s Office.”
She said her office notified the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of North Carolina and the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals.
“The office also sent notice to attorneys representing clients in pending matters involving Folmar, advising them that those matters have been reassigned,” said Wagoner, a Salisbury resident and former chief Rowan County District Court judge.
Wagoner’s statement added that assistant U.S. attorneys must be members in good standing in at least one state bar and are required to notify the U.S. Department of Justice of any change in bar membership status.
It’s not clear what impact Folmar’s practicing with a suspended license will have on possibly hundreds of cases he handled since 2003.
Lynne P. Klauer, assistant U.S. attorney and public information officer for the Middle District, said Wednesday the matter has been turned over to the U.S. Department of Justice’s Office of Professional Responsibility in Washington and she referred any questions there.
“There’s little we can say about it,” Klauer said.
The Office of Professional Responsibility did not return a call from the Post.
Folmar’s suspended status came to Wagoner’s attention March 6, when her office received an e-mail from an employee at the N.C. State Bar.
By March 9, Wagoner had confirmed that Folmar had not had a valid, active state bar license since Nov. 14, 2003, and he was relieved of his duties then.
Wagoner informed Chief U.S. District Court Judge James A. Beaty Jr. on March 13 about Folmar’s status.
“In appearing before and filing documents with this court,” Wagoner told Beaty, “Folmar represented himself as a licensed attorney.
“This letter is provided to correct that inaccurate representation.”
Wagoner continued in her letter that she had no reason to believe that Folmar’s appearance before the court during his suspension “had any material effect on any case.”
But she said she was notifying Beaty because of the importance her office placed on candor to the court.
With the March 13 letter, Wagoner enclosed a list of cases pending before the court for which Folmar was the assigned prosecutor. She said other assistant U.S. attorneys would be filing substitution of counsel forms in those cases.
A copy of her letter also went to defense counsel in each of the pending cases formerly assigned to Folmar.
“Out of an abundance of caution,” Wagoner added in the March 13 letter, her office was compiling an additional list of closed cases Folmar had handled.
“That list will be provided to the court upon completion, and defense counsel from each of those cases will be notified as well,” Wagoner said.
Folmar’s fate apparently rests with the Justice Department’s Office of Professional Responsibility, which reports to the U.S. attorney general.
The office is responsible for investigating allegations of misconduct involving department attorneys “that relate to the exercise of their authority to investigate, litigate or provide legal advice.”
“The objective of OPR is to ensure that Department of Justice attorneys continue to perform their duties in accordance with the high professional standards expected of the nation’s principal law enforcement agency,” the office’s Web site says.