‘Disbarred and vanished’

When appellate district defender Ruth Sanders argued David Gehrke’s case before the Missouri Supreme Court in January, her hands partly were tied.

She alleged Gehrke was abandoned by the attorney he hired to represent him. But the actions of that Kansas City attorney, Wendell Geary Jaco, were not part of the court record.

If they were, Sanders said, the court would have heard about Jaco sending frequent letters to his client in prison, assuring him he was still working on the case. Five years later, allegedly, no work had been done, and the Missouri State Public Defender’s Office picked up the case in August 2006.

By that time, Jaco had left Missouri and was disbarred by the Missouri Supreme Court for violating rules of professional conduct in two cases.

“Counsel in this case has been disbarred and vanished,” Sanders said at the oral argument.

Before running into trouble with the state’s Office of Chief Disciplinary Counsel, Jaco kept a busy criminal defense practice, by many accounts, and was well-known in the Kansas City legal community.

Ted Hunt, an assistant Jackson County prosecutor, said Jaco was a fixture in the prosecutor’s office in the mid- to late 1990s. Hunt said he faced Jaco in a couple of trials during that period.

John P. Burnett, a Kansas City solo practitioner and state representative, knew Jaco for decades. The two attorneys lived across the street from each other until Jaco abruptly left the neighborhood a few years ago.

“I don’t know what he got in trouble for or why,” Burnett said. “One day the moving trucks pulled up, and he was gone.”

Burnett said he was shocked when he heard Jaco was disbarred.

In May 2005, Jaco, then living in Buford, Ga., filed a petition for the voluntary surrender of his law license. The Supreme Court denied that surrender in November 2005.

From there, a regional disciplinary hearing panel took up the matter.

According to a June 2006 decision prepared by the panel, Jaco took on a post-conviction case from a Kansas inmate, Kenneth Hartfield, without telling Hartfield he wasn’t licensed to practice law in Kansas.

In another case, two women retained Jaco for legal help with a child custody and support case. According to the disciplinary panel, Jaco allegedly accepted a $2,500 retainer but failed to file paperwork with the court and neglected to keep the clients informed about their case.

In considering an appropriate discipline, the panel wrote that any punishment would be aggravated by eight prior disciplinary actions Jaco received from 1988 to 2004. The panel also alleged that Jaco submitted false evidence to the panel, including prepared letters that were added to client files because of the pending disciplinary case.

Thomas Fritzlen, a Kansas City attorney with Martin, Leigh, Laws & Fritzlen, represented Jaco in the disciplinary proceedings for 15 months, and then he withdrew as counsel. Fritzlen declined to comment on Jaco’s case and said he had no idea where Jaco lives.

Kansas City attorney Jay D. DeHardt also represented Jaco in the disciplinary proceeding but withdrew after four months. DeHardt did not immediately return a call for comment.

The disciplinary panel cited Jaco’s history of seizures as a mitigating factor for its recommendation to the Supreme Court that he be disbarred.

“But their relationship, if any, to the ongoing pattern of lack of diligence and promptness is not supported by any evidence in the record presented to this panel,” the panel wrote.

Jaco’s experiences with seizures was mentioned in a separate case, when another former client, Amy Rodriguez, sued Jaco in Jackson County Circuit Court for alleged legal malpractice after the attorney defended her in a rape case.

Jaco filed an answer denying Rodriguez’s claims, but he did not appear for an August 2006 case-management conference.

According to Rodriguez’s lawsuit, Jaco called Rodriguez’s attorney, Ben Kieler, just before the scheduled conference. According to the suit, Jaco allegedly told Kieler he was suffering from an epilepticlike condition and was planning to file for disability as well as bankruptcy. He also indicated to Kieler that he was unable to work.

In July 2007, after Jaco failed to appear at a hearing on the lawsuit, Jackson County Circuit Judge Justine Del Muro ordered Jaco to pay his former client $600,000 for legal malpractice.

Kieler could not be reached for comment. The online court record on Rodriguez’s case contains no entries after Del Muro’s order; there is no mention of Jaco paying the judgment.

Alan Pratzel, chief disciplinary counsel, said if a disbarred attorney attempts to practice law in another state, the state still has jurisdiction and can pursue criminal charges.

“Disbarment is the most severe discipline that can be issued,” Pratzel said. “We don’t have any authority beyond that disbarment.”
Where is he now?

Rodriguez’s lawsuit described difficulties locating Jaco. According to the suit, after he left Missouri, Jaco lived in Vermont and relocated two more times before settling in Georgia.

Sanders, the district defender, said the Public Defender’s Office has no idea where Jaco is.

Internet searches revealed two businesses in Georgia linked to a Geary Jaco, a painting company called Benchmark Painting and Contracting and an independent distributer of earth-friendly cleaning products, called Benchmark for Your Health. Both businesses are in the northern suburbs of Atlanta.

A call to a number listed on a letter Jaco wrote to the Missouri disciplinary panel was picked up by voicemail for “Geary from Benchmark Painting.” Messages to a separate number for Benchmark Painting were not returned as of press time.

A photograph of the owner that appears on Web sites for both businesses was sent to several members of the Kansas City legal community. Five people, including Hunt and Burnett, said the man in the photograph looked like Jaco.

Charles Emerick contributed reporting to this story.