Bromwell Trial Is Postponed As Lawyers Are Taken Off Case

A federal judge postponed the public corruption trial yesterday of former Maryland state senator Thomas L. Bromwell and his wife just as jury selection was about to begin, ordering that the couple's attorneys would have to leave the case because of "irreconcilable conflicts of interest."

In an order filed in U.S. District Court in Baltimore, Judge J. Frederick Motz did not describe the conflicts of interest that he said required delaying the case until this fall.

The lawyers who represented the Bromwells until yesterday did not respond to messages seeking comment, and Marcia Murphy, a spokeswoman for the U.S. attorney's office, said she had no information about the conflicts.

The racketeering indictment against Bromwell and his wife is viewed as being among the state's most significant public corruption cases in years.

Bromwell, a Baltimore County Democrat who was once chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, is accused of performing a variety of official acts as a senator for the benefit of a contractor in exchange for cash delivered to him in the form of a no-show job for his wife, Mary Pat, and other favors.

The couple's attorneys -- Joshua Treem and Gerard P. Martin -- are accomplished lawyers at well-regarded firms, and their disqualification on the eve of a trial for which parties on both sides have spent months preparing is unusual.

Since the indictment was filed nearly 18 months ago, however, one of Thomas Bromwell's attorneys, Robert B. Schulman, a partner of Treem, dropped out of the case. Also, Bromwell and his wife swapped attorneys at some point.

Although the unusual moves have been evident in some court filings, many documents in the case remain sealed. Yesterday, in response to a motion by the Baltimore Sun, Motz ordered that some of those filings be unsealed Tuesday. He declined to unseal a government filing from December entitled "Notice of Possible Attorney Conflict of Interest."

Motz's order postponing the trial said only that conflicts "have arisen that prevent counsel for Mr. and Mrs. Bromwell from continuing to represent them.

"Accordingly," he wrote, "new counsel must be appointed to represent Mr. and Mrs. Bromwell, and the trial of this case must be postponed until the fall of this year."

At least six defendants have pleaded guilty and are expected to testify against Bromwell, including W. David Stoffregen, the contractor accused of bribing him.

Stoffregen, who was initially named as a defendant in the racketeering indictment, has admitted in court that he made secret payments to Bromwell. He also admitted that he had done free or steeply discounted contracting work at the lawmaker's home in exchange for state contracts that Bromwell steered to Stoffregen's firm, Poole and Kent Corp.