Prosecutors Ask to Have Hornsby's Attorney Removed

Federal prosecutors have asked a judge to consider whether the attorney defending former Prince George's County schools chief Andre J. Hornsby against public corruption charges should be disqualified from the case.

In filings at U.S. District Court in Greenbelt, the prosecutors say that Robert C. Bonsib's representation of Hornsby in 2005, during a school board investigation of matters that later led to his indictment, raises a host of troubling legal issues, including the possibility that Bonsib might be called as a witness at his client's criminal trial.

Bonsib has urged Judge Peter J. Messitte to deny the prosecution request, and has filed an affidavit in which Hornsby waived any right to complain about potential conflicts of interest and other issues raised by Assistant U.S. Attorneys Michael R. Pauzé and Stuart A. Berman.

"This is a very unusual motion," Bonsib said in an interview, "and it strikes at the heart of a defendant's right to counsel of his choice."

Bonsib said that no prosecutor has sought to remove him in the more than three decades that he has practiced law.

Marcia Murphy, a spokeswoman for U.S. Attorney Rod J. Rosenstein, declined to comment.

Hornsby has pleaded not guilty to 16 felony counts, including obstruction of justice. In an indictment returned last year, a federal grand jury accused Hornsby of steering a contract to a consulting company linked to an associate and of arranging for a $1 million purchase from the software company LeapFrog SchoolHouse, for which his then-girlfriend was a saleswoman. In both cases, it alleged, Hornsby demanded and received kickbacks.

The former girlfriend, Sienna Owens, who was a sales representative for the company's Virginia territory, has pleaded guilty to a tax offense and is cooperating with prosecutors. Owens has said in court that she collected $20,000 from the commission on the purchase, a sum she said she split with Hornsby.

Bonsib said that during a hearing last month, Hornsby agreed to discuss the issue of his representation with another attorney. He said Messitte indicated that he was inclined to allow Hornsby to continue with Bonsib if, after that consultation, Hornsby still wished to do so.

Messitte has scheduled a follow-up hearing on the matter for Feb. 26, Bonsib said.

In their request for a court inquiry, Pauzé and Berman wrote that Bonsib "has first-hand knowledge of events central to this allegation" because he represented Hornsby in the school board probe during which Hornsby "provided false information in order to conceal his financial interest in the contracts" at issue. The prosecutors do not allege that Bonsib was complicit in making false statements.

Still, they wrote, Bonsib's involvement raises the possibility that either side might require his testimony. In addition, they wrote, jurors might unfairly infer that Bonsib's questions and statements reflect his personal knowledge of events.

Finally, the prosecutors wrote that Bonsib's representation might create issues for Hornsby to raise on appeal, including that Bonsib, because of his own involvement, could not conduct a disinterested analysis of the advisability of shifting responsibility to counsel for the alleged false statements to the board.

Bonsib wrote in response that, given Hornsby's clear desire to retain him, disqualifying him from the case would create a more substantial appellate issue. He wrote that the government's concerns are largely "speculative in nature" and insufficient to justify disqualification.