On Other Side of Courtroom, Still High Profile
After Decades as a Prosecutor, Lawyer Jumps to Defense of Md. Politicians

By Henri E. Cauvin
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, August 19, 2008

For defense attorneys hired by the powerful and politically connected, the job can be about more than keeping the client out of prison.

It's often about keeping them out of the news, away from the courthouse and, if possible, still in office.

In Maryland, one of the most sought-after practitioners of this delicate craft is Dale P. Kelberman. As the chief white-collar crime prosecutor for the U.S. attorney's office, he was known for his meticulous, methodical pursuit of wrongdoing.

Now he's defending two of the state's most powerful politicians, both entangled in high-profile probes of possible corruption. State Sen. Ulysses Currie (D-Prince George's) is under investigation by the FBI in connection with his work on behalf of Shoppers Food & Pharmacy and its corporate parent. Baltimore Mayor Sheila Dixon (D) is under investigation by the Maryland state prosecutor's office, which is examining her relationship to a Baltimore developer she was dating while she was president of the City Council. Neither Currie nor Dixon has been charged.

In the clubby world of Maryland prosecutors and ex-prosecutors, it's still surprising to some that Kelberman is now working on the other side of the courtroom.

Stephen H. Sachs, who as state attorney general hired Kelberman in 1979 to work on fraud and corruption cases, recalled not only his skill as a prosecutor but also how much he seemed to enjoy it. "He liked putting bad guys in jail," Sachs said.

Now, as a partner at the Baltimore firm of Miles & Stockbridge, Kelberman's job is keeping people as far away from jail as possible. After five years as a defense attorney, Kelberman, 59, said he isn't pining for his old job.

"No," he says in an interview, chuckling, "I don't think I could ever go back to doing that."

Sitting in a conference room 13 floors above Baltimore's Light Street, Kelberman speaks like someone who knows far more than he can ever say. Prosecuting prominent people taught Kelberman the importance of discretion. Defending them has allowed him to perfect it.

Pauses punctuate many answers. Sometimes, he doesn't give answers at all, just apologies. "I don't think I want to talk about that," he says when asked to describe what he, as a defense lawyer, does when a client comes under investigation. "I'm sorry."

Kelberman's path to this point began at the Baltimore state's attorney's office, which he joined after graduating from the University of Baltimore's law school in 1975. He intended to become a defense lawyer and saw the prosecutor job as a résumé-builder.

"I thought I would get a lot of trial experience quickly, and I did," he recalls. "Things just developed from there and kept me as a prosecutor longer than I anticipated."

In 1979, he moved to the state attorney general's office, where amid the nationwide savings and loan crisis in the 1980s he helped lead the investigation in Maryland. It was one of the largest white-collar cases in the state's history, and it led to the convictions of the owners of the Old Court Savings and Loan Association.

The case was a careermaker, landing Kelberman and his colleagues on a 1987 cover of the Baltimore Sun's Sunday magazine, under the headline "The Prosecutors." That year, Kelberman was hired into the U.S. attorney's office.

As a federal prosecutor, among his biggest cases was the prosecution of Annapolis lobbyist Bruce C. Bereano, who was accused of charging clients for illegal campaign contributions, which he secretly channeled to local and state political campaigns.

Once again a lobbying powerhouse, Bereano, in a telephone interview, insisted that he is not bitter about his 1994 conviction. Kelberman was an experienced, hard-working prosecutor, Bereano said. "He just had no blood in his veins. There was just never any scintilla of human feeling or humanity."

After Thomas M. DiBiagio took over as the U.S. attorney in Maryland in 2001, Kelberman stepped down from leading the white-collar unit. He began thinking about what he wanted to do next, he said.

Eventually, he was approached by an old boss, former U.S. attorney Richard D. Bennett. Bennett, who headed the white-collar defense practice at Miles & Stockbridge, was about to become a federal judge, and he wanted Kelberman to take over for him.

"It seemed the right fit at the right time," Kelberman said. He signed on in June 2003.

It wasn't hard to go from pursuing defendants to protecting them, he said. "It wasn't a big leap for me to feel compassion for clients," he said. "I often felt that some of the people who I prosecuted were good people who just did some bad things for foolish reasons."

His work has put him in the middle of Maryland's most prominent public corruption cases -- involving a legislator once seen as a strong candidate for senate president and a mayor whose political prospects seemed buoyed by the city's falling crime rate.

Federal investigators believe that Currie was being paid by Shoppers and its parent company to advance the company's legislative and regulatory interests, according to court documents. Currie did not disclose this relationship in state ethics filings. Currie, who is also represented by attorney William H. Murphy Jr., and Kelberman have declined to comment on the matter.

The Dixon probe is one element of wide-ranging inquiry that has been underway for more than two years. In Dixon's case, state investigators are looking into whether she received gifts from a developer she was dating, Ronald H. Lipscomb, and whether Lipscomb benefited from actions Dixon took while council president. Dixon, who is also represented by attorney Arnold Weiner, has denied any wrongdoing. Gerald P. Martin, an attorney for Lipscomb, denied any wrongdoing by his client.

Watching him work, admirers say that Kelberman is discreet and unflappable, valued qualities in someone dealing with clients who fear not just prison time but public embarrassment as well.

"An individual under investigation . . . deep down is terrified," Sachs said. "They may not show it, they may not even realize it, but there is huge jeopardy they face. Prison is a disgrace, especially for the high-profile person, and what that person feels he or she needs is not just the skills but also a sense of reassurance, a sense of strength."