Yesterday evening, Legal Times reporter Jeff Jeffrey reported that at-large council candidate Dee Hunter is facing strong reprimand from the D.C. Bar Counsel for, among other things, allegedly keeping settlement proceeds without informing his clients.

Reports Jeffery:

Bar counsel accuses Hunter of violating a number of ethical rules, including committing criminal acts (forgery and theft), misappropriating funds, failing to maintain complete and accurate financial records, and “engaging in conduct that involved dishonesty, fraud, deceit and/or misrepresentation.” The charges carry a maximum penalty of disbarment.

Now Hunter isn’t the only candidate to have a history before the bar counsel. When running for mayor in 2006, it came out that Adrian M. Fenty had been lightly reprimanded for mishandling the affairs of an elderly client. The charges against Hunter are more serious.

Hunter did not immediately return a phone call from LL. Here’s what he told Jeffery:

“These allegations are completely, absolutely, 100 percent untrue,” Hunter said. “It’s hard to think it’s a coincidence that they’re coming out days before the election. After the hearing, it will be clear that I’ve done nothing wrong.”[...]

Hunter declined to go into detail about the bar counsel charges, saying only when dealing with a heavy caseload “sometimes things fall through the cracks.”

“In my career, I’ve had times where I had a caseload of hundreds of cases,” Hunter says. “I was acting as attorney, paralegal, secretary, bookkeeper, and file clerk. Under these circumstances, did I make some mistakes? Yes. Did I ever do anything intentionally wrong? Never.”

Hunter also ran into the legal system earlier this year, when a woman filed for a stay-away order against him after a Jan. 2 altercation. That petition was eventually denied by a Superior Court judge.

His troubles don’t end there: Hunter is also having his ballot petitions challenged by former at-large candidate Adam Clampitt, now a supporter of fellow independent Michael A. Brown. In a conversation with LL last week, Hunter said he believed Clampitt’s challenge would be summarily dismissed. A pre-hearing on the matter is scheduled for today.

UPDATE, 4:05 P.M.: Clampitt’s claim has been dismissed, says Board of Elections and Ethics spokesperson Dan Murphy. Clampitt did not challenge enough signatures to potentially take Hunter below the 3,000 necessary, so Hunter will appear on the November ballot.

Photo by Darrow Montgomery

Last night, an up-and-comer upended the decades-long political career of Republican At-Large Councilmember Carol Schwartz. Thirty-three-year-old Patrick Mara used a whole boatload of cash from the biz community, plus a nice endorsement from the Washington Post, to drub Schwartz in yesterday’s Republican primary, by a margin of 60 percent to 40 percent.

Now, winning a primary in the District of Columbia is usually a huge deal. It generally means you’ve won your office for all intents and purposes, with the general election a mere formality.

If you’re a Democrat, that is.

If you’re a Republican, the landscape is far different, especially in the wide-open at-large race. The problem is that Mara’s party represents about 7 percent of D.C. voters, many of whom are dyed-in-the-wool Carol supporters who are put off by the bitter attacks that Mara launched against the career incumbent.

To snare an at-large seat, Mara will have to be ride that fractured mandate to a strong showing in the November balloting. There are two seats up for grabs, to be claimed by the top two vote-getters. One of those top two is a foregone conclusion: Unopposed Democratic At-Large Councilmember Kwame Brown will trounce the rest of the field.

That leaves a scramble for the No. 2 spot, which is worth a sweet part-time job that pays $120,000 per year. There’s a mad scramble for the runner-up position, too.

The party guys in this tilt are Brown, Mara, and Statehood-Green candidate David Schwartzman.

The indies, though, add a great element of drama. Failed mayoral and council candidate Michael A. Brown and longtime D.C. activist Dee Hunter are vying for the seats as independents.

Even though they’re not. Both Brown and Hunter are Dems, an affiliation that they surely will not hide over the next two months. They’re essentially trying to do what D.C. election law should allow them to do, which is to embrace open competition for the at-large seats.

Of these two “independent democrats,” Brown appears to have the edge. He has some name recognition from his mayoral run in 2006 and his subsequent attempt to snare the Ward 4 council seat vacated by now-Mayor Adrian M. Fenty. Brown withdrew from the mayoral race in its late stages and was trounced in his Ward 4 race.

Now comes his third shot in as many years. Brown will no doubt be simplifying things for the electorate, instructing people to vote “Brown and Brown” and will doubtless steal from Schwartz’s playbook a bit, hammering Mara as a puppet of special interests. If Schwartz had sneaked through her primary, she would have soaked up all the love from the Dems and independents who’ve put her in that coveted No. 2 spot on previous at-large ballots.

With her on the sidelines, that spot is essentially Brown’s to lose.

Photograph by Darrow Montgomery, Washington City Paper stalwart

At-large council incumbent Carol Schwartz‘ campaign might just be a couple of weeks old, but she’s wasted no time finding prime office space: LL over the weekend spotted Schwartz signs above a 7-Eleven at the corner of 12th and U Streets NW.

This, of course, is rival Dee Hunter’s stomping grounds; the border of the district he represents as an advisory neighborhood commissioner starts a block up 12th Street. Hunter, natch, called up LL yesterday to point it out.

“I think it’s a smart decision on her part, because no one knows who she is the neighborhood,” he says.

Hunter continued the trash-talking, pointing out Schwartz’ plastic banners and signs recycled from her last campaign: “Her headquarters is really an eyesore. We don’t tolerate that kind of stuff hanging from buildings around here. It does not fit the neighborhood at all.”

Hunter, of course, pointed to the sharp backlighted sign on his own (empty) headquarters, a block and a half away at 1318 U St. NW, as something more in keeping with the surroundings:

Hunter had better watch it—Schwartz has clearly been eying a possible run from him for years, having been slowing inching onto the happy Hunter grounds: For her 1996 mayoral run, she had her headquarters downtown. Then, for runs in 1998 and 2000, she occupied a building at 7th Street and New York Avenue NW (now occupied by the Jack Evans campaign). The 2002 tilt took her to upper Georgia Avenue NW, and in 2004 HQ was on the 900 block of U Street, according to Schwartz aide John Abbot.

Abbot also notes that mail service has begun and the Schwartz campaign would be happy to accept any checks at 1115 U St. NW, Suite 201.

Note: LL is taking a pre-campaign-season constitutional the remainder of this week and next. He’ll see you all at the Palisades July 4 parade and back on City Desk on July 7.

On Saturday afternoon, LL was watching the weather report with bated breath, as a line of thunderstorms threatened to put the kibosh on this year’s Capital Pride Parade, the centerpiece of the yearly gay-community celebration and the first chance for the players in this year’s campaign season to truly come out. (Yes, pun intended.)

Luckily, the show went on. The big news of the parade were the mystery signs:

All along the parade route, posted on lampposts were signs reading “Ask Carol Schwartz why she OPPOSES marriage equality” in Schwartz’ trademark yellow-and-white. The signs carried absolutely no indication of where they might have come from. Shady!

Gay activist Peter Rosenstein told LL he had seen folks on stepladders posting the signs earlier in the afternoon, but neither he nor anyone else LL consulted had any idea who they were. The challengers who marched in the parade—Adam Clampitt, Dee Hunter, and Patrick Mara—all denied having anything to do with the signs. (A Clampitt aide, in fact, phoned in a preemptive denial, before LL even showed up for the parade.)

Schwartz called it “the work of a cowardly liar” and furthermore implored LL not to “rain on my parade” (har har) by giving the cowards any ink—sorry, Carol! (For more on the does-Carol-support-gay-marriage theme, read Washington Blade articles by Rosenstein and by Schwartz.)

LL thought he might have solved the mystery when, right on the middle of the 17th Street NW commercial strip, a spectator holding one of the signs in one hand and a drink in the other marched right out to confront Schwartz, who was walking behind her yellow Pontiac Firebird. From a distance, LL seemed to see Schwartz saying to the interloper, “I do! I do!” in response to the sign’s query.

After Schwartz passed, LL asked the man, Andrew Campbell of Dupont Circle, whether he’d been involved in the signmaking. Nope, he said—”I pulled it off the lamppost.”

LL quizzed him further on the reasoning behind his anti-Schwartz stance. “I dunno,” he said. “Look at what the sign says!”

The crowd rest of the crowd seemed not to care much. Take this spectator reaction to the confrontation: “Tell him to fuck off, Carol!”

Many more pix after the jump! Read the rest of this entry »

Michael A. Brown is filing his papers today to officially enter the race for an at-large D.C. Council seat as an independent. He’ll be facing longtime incumbent Carol Schwartz, as well as motivated challengers Adam Clampitt and Dee Hunter, in November for the non-Democratic slot.

Brown, son of legendary Democratic honcho Ron Brown and veteran of failed runs for mayor and Ward 4 councilmember, spent almost two months pondering his run on an exploratory basis. This time, Brown says, he’s really done his homework, leading him to believe he has a winning strategy. “It’s been all scientific,” he says. “When I ran for mayor, it was kind of on gut. Ward 4 council—that was half gut, half scientific.”

His winning issues, Brown says, are a bit of a reprise from his mayoral run, where he made youth issues a centerpiece of his campaign. This time, he says, he’ll be focused on the disposition of closed school buildings—”I am not a proponent of selling every asset we have for condo development. There is no reason those assets shouldn’t be turned into libraries, vocational centers, senior centers”—and a “lack of opportunity” for youth.

In addition, Brown—who has a background in municipal finance—says he’s concerned about the District’s debt load and advocates refinancing bond issues for the baseball stadium and the convention center. “We need to take advantage of the rates now, get the payments down,” he says.

A big question is whether Brown, 42, is willing to give up his lucrative lobbying gig to be a full-time councilmember—a pledge so far given by all his opponents. He recently left the lobbying firm Alcalde & Fay to join Boston-based Edwards Angell Palmer & Dodge.

“I haven’t made that assessment,” Brown says, citing a need to speak with current councilmembers with side gigs such as Ward 2’s Jack Evans and at-large member David Catania about their experiences. “My first priority will be the people of the District of Columbia.”

Brown says he has no events planned until later next month, when he will conduct an eight-ward “whistle-stop tour” on Metro.

Photo by Darrow Montgomery

At-Large council candidate Dee Hunter took a step toward putting an embarrassing episode behind him today, when a Superior Court judge denied a petition for a stay-away order filed against him in January.

WRC-TV’s Tom Sherwood broke the news of the petition earlier this year. On Jan. 2, the document alleges, Hunter pushed the petitioner—a woman he had dated three times before—out of his car, then later pushed her again at a restaurant when she approached him about getting some personal items out of his home, and then, later when she went to his home to get those items, that he pushed her to the ground, cutting her lip.

Today, in front of Judge Lee Satterfield, the two hashed out each one’s version of events. Hunter arrived at court with counsel, Michael Starr of Schertler & Onorato, and three witnesses to support his version of events. The woman who filed the petition represented herself in the hearing and brought no witnesses.

The situation took place after the two had attended a Wizards game that night. On the way from Verizon Center to Alero restaurant on U Street NW, Hunter says he stopped to pick up some wine and other items and the woman accused him of smoking while out of the car, leading to a verbal altercation. Hunter stopped a second time, leading to a second verbal exchange and the woman leaving the car. The woman alleged physical contact; Hunter denied it.

Afterward, the woman came to Alero, where Hunter met some friends as previously planned. There, the woman asked him to let her in to the house so she could get her things and leave. Hunter and friends tried to convince her to stay for a drink and appetizers, but she insisted on returning to the house immediately. At this point, the woman alleged Hunter shoved her and her arm got caught up in his cost. Hunter says she struck him in the face and shoulders with her gloves while he was seated and he immediately rose to leave, at which point she grabbed on to his coat.

At that point, one of Hunter’s friends intervened to break up the altercation. The friend, Gregory Campbell, testified that he offered to get the woman’s things for her, but that she insisted on going to Hunter’s house. The woman said that he never offered to go himself. Before coming to Alero, Hunter alleges that the woman went to his nearby house, on the 2100 block of 12th Place NW, and tried to get in to retrieve her belongings, cutting a window screen and damaging a window frame.

When the woman and Campbell arrived at the house, the woman said Hunter rushed to the door and starting shaking her bag out, then shoved her to the ground when she tried to grab the bag. Hunter says he stayed in the doorway and held on to the bag because he wasn’t sure if she was going to use it to hit him. She fell, he says, when he let go of the bag after Campbell told him to while she was still pulling.

“At no time did I touch her in any way,” Hunter testified.

The testimony came down to essentially he-said, she-said. Satterfield, in his bench ruling, called the encounter a “one-time incident in which a lot of bad judgment was exercised,” but determined that no “good cause” could be found that an offense had taken place. He referred to “bad judgment on the part of Mr. Hunter not to just give her the items and be done with it.”

“I think the petitioner did not exercise particularly good judgment either,” he said.

Starr said after the hearing: “The allegations were totally false and the evidence presented in court proved that. The only crimes committed that night took place when Ms. Alexander assaulted Mr. Hunter after having tried, earlier in the evening, to break into his house.”

UPDATE, 3:45 P.M.: The woman issued the following statement:

It is unfortunate that after assaulting me three times in one night and misleading the court this morning, Mr. Hunter has chosen to demean my character and integrity. Today, I simply asked that Mr. Hunter stay away from me and asked for the court’s assistance in keeping me safe. It is sad that, instead of accepting responsibility for his actions, he has chosen a path of slander and deceit. The judge said quite clearly that Mr. Hunter used very poor judgment that night and that there was no reason not to believe the chain of events unfolded as I testified, namely that Mr. Hunter pursued a course of unprovoked violence and mistreatment.

Though I understand now why many women have no faith in the criminal justice system to protect them, my solace is that other women now know the kind of ma Hunter is and are warned to stay away from him. I can only thank God that this occurred after only a few outings. As I am a very private person, I hope that these can be my final comments on this matter, but I would encourage all women who have been mistreated by violent men to stand up for themselves as I did.

Yesterday, LL reported that former mayoral candidate Michael A. Brown is officially exploring a run for the non-Democratic at-large council seat now held by Carol Schwartz. LL polled his likely competition.

Says Dee Hunter: “Mike Brown’s political instincts in the the past haven’t been good,” he says. “This is a guy who ran for mayor, dropped out, got 600 votes, then turned around and endorsed Linda Cropp days before Adrian Fenty won every precinct in the city….I think his political instincts are off in this race, too.”

Says Adam Clampitt: “Regardless of who is in the race, I represent the best candidate to beat Carol Schwartz,” he says. “This is all about door-knocking. Whoever knocks on the most doors wins, and I’ve knocked on the most doors.”

Says Schwartz: No comment, through a spokesperson.

Dear Mr. Hunter:

I passed a few of your volunteers today. On my way to my polling place at 1640 Columbia Road NW, I spotted a Hunter volunteer passing out your glossy pamphlets. I regret not taking the literature. When I took a ballot, I looked for your name. There was Bill Richardson. There was Obama. There was Hillary. I didn’t think you were running for president. I mean we don’t need another Washington Insider, especially someone who was a former counsel to the “Council Committee on Health and Human Services.”

But I did think: Dee Hunter, where are you? You must be running for something. After I voted, my lingering thought was: Did I miss voting for an office where you were an option. The thought made me feel sad and stupid. You really weren’t running for anything today.

I learned this fact from one of your volunteers, Yashica Hawkins. Ms. Hawkins was kind enough to explain to me that you were running for an At-Large Council seat in November. Ms. Hawkins was also kind enough to tell me that I wasn’t the only dumb person out there.

“They think he’s on the ballot for today,” she told me of the Adams Morgan electorate.

I replied that I didn’t think it was a good idea for you to be confusing people. Ms. Hawkins disagreed. But she did confess that maybe you should have had her pass out your pamphlets in a few months–like in the spring.

“It’s too cold to be standing out here,” Ms. Hawkins complained. She told me she was getting $125 for the day plus a Popeye’s lunch (two-piece plus biscuit and fries). She said it was too cold to bother with a free drink.

Anyway. Thanks a lot for making me feel stupid.