Arrested Lawyer Quick to Charge Back

Walter L. Blair, right, worked with Johnnie L. Cochran Jr. during a 2003 civil suit relating to the fatal Prince George's County shooting of college student Gary A. Hopkins Jr. A settlement was reached before trial. (By Dayna Smith -- The Washington Post)
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According to the indictment, Blair later told the Germantown resident to lie to an FBI agent who was asking questions about the drug money. Blair also failed to report the funds on his tax returns, the indictment alleges.

Blair contends that the financial transactions were legal. He said he recently learned from his tax preparer that he overpaid the government for the years in question and is entitled to a refund of about $47,000.

Blair, a father of six, and his wife divorced in 1993, according to Montgomery County court records. They engaged in a years-long legal battle in which she alleged that he was behind in child-support payments, at one point by more than $14,000. Blair sought to have his payments reduced, saying in one document filed with the court, "I do not have any money."

For a time during that battle, he sought to become the primary caretaker of their two children, submitting to the court pictures of the children and him snorkeling in Jamaica and visiting the Mall.

In the mid-1980s, when he practiced in West Virginia, Blair was charged with obstruction of justice for allegedly tampering with a witness. He was found guilty, but a judge threw out the convictions, and he was acquitted at a second trial. Blair unsuccessfully sued the prosecutor in that case.

About the same time, Blair filed a lawsuit accusing a West Virginia judge of making racially incendiary remarks about Blair. Specifically, the judge told a fellow jurist in 1983 that Blair should "go back there in Africa and swing from the trees with the rest of his relatives," according to a deposition provided by Blair. The lawsuit was settled under terms that are not public, Blair said.

Blair also took on authorities in lawsuits he filed on behalf of his clients.

In 1999, Blair, Cochran and Baltimore lawyer Billy Murphy sued Montgomery after a county police detective accidentally shot a 44-year-old man to death. The county settled the suit by agreeing to pay $2 million to the family of the man, Junious W. Roberts Jr.

In 2003, Prince George's County paid $200,000 to settle a civil lawsuit against county police Cpl. Brian C. Catlett, who fatally shot college student Gary A. Hopkins Jr. four years earlier. In that case, Blair brought in Cochran, who gained worldwide fame defending O.J. Simpson in his double-murder trial. The county settled before the case went to trial.

Blair said he met Cochran at a 1998 book-signing event for Cochran in the District.

A law professor said civil actions like the one Blair filed this month against Rosenstein are unusual and rarely succeed.

"Unless you have a smoking gun -- say, Rod Rosenstein was heard to say, 'I'm going to prosecute someone because he's Jamaican,' -- it's very difficult," said Byron L. Warnken, a law professor at the University of Baltimore School of Law.

"There is no lawyer in the United States who would take [Blair's] civil case on a contingency basis," he added, "except for the publicity value."

Staff writer Dan Morse and researcher Meg Smith contributed to this report.