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When clients attack

It’s a tense situation confronted by every criminal defense lawyer. The client is not the most stable individual in the community.

He or she may have been charged with shocking acts of violence. There may be a life sentence, or worse, hanging over the head of the accused.

Yet the lawyer must enter a small room, face the client one-on-one, and discuss the grim situation. Or, the lawyer must sit shoulder-to-shoulder with the client as they together hear the court’s judgment.

Most of time, nothing unexpected happens. Sometimes, however, human nature overcomes self-restraint and the client lashes out. When the rage is unleashed, there is no more convenient target than the defense attorney.

That worst-case outcome happened last year to Manassas lawyer Jennifer Zary. Zary, 32, was locked in a jail interview room with her client, David Allen Hagelin, as they discussed his charges, including rape, forcible sodomy, aggravated malicious wounding and abduction with intent to defile.

Apparently, Hagelin didn’t like the news from his attorney. Zary testified that she had been talking with Hagelin for about an hour when things got testy. Hagelin told Zary he was going to kill her.

According to news reports of Hagelin’s trial, a passing jail officer saw an “alarmed” expression on Zary’s face and reached for his keys to open the door. Just then, he saw Hagelin knock Zary over. He yelled, “Holy s***,” and other officers responded.
“I was very fortunate on that particular day,” Zary said. “It was an immediate response.”

By the time the officers came to her aid, however, Hagelin was choking Zary and knocking her head against the floor. “It took four of them to get him off of me,” Zary said.

Zary was left with bruises and a cut on her elbow. Hagelin even pulled out some of her hair. Still, she said, it could have been worse if a guard hadn’t happened by just as the attack occurred.

“None of the local attorneys likes the fact that we get locked in attorney visit booths,” she said.

Zary explained that it was the normal practice at the Prince William-Manassas Adult Detention Center for guards to lock the doors on the outside of the interview rooms. That leaves the lawyer and client trapped together until a guard lets them out again.
Hagelin was sentenced to a year in jail and fined $2,500 for the attack on Zary. Charged with attempted capital murder, a jury found him guilty of only assault and battery. He was apologetic at his sentencing, according to news reports. “I did scare her and caused her great anguish and pain…. I don’t know if she will ever forgive me,” he said.

Col. Peter Meletis, Superintendent of the Prince William Manassas Regional Adult Detention Center, said the attack on Zary was unusual. “This facility has been here for 26 years. That was the first time an inmate has attacked an attorney,” he said.
Criminal defense attorneys may soon be able to confer with their Manassas clients without leaving their offices. Meletis explained that a new facility expected to open in October will have separate in-house video conferencing facilities for the public and for attorneys, and will accommodate online video hookups for some lawyers.

Another Manassas lawyer was injured by an ungrateful client right in front of a judge. Anthony Kostelecky was stabbed by a ballpoint-pen-wielding client at a civil commitment hearing at a local hospital.

The June 2007 attack came without warning, according to Kostelecky. During the hearing, “there were no threats, no posturing, no threatening body language,” he said. Then the judge announced his approval of the petition sending the client to confinement.
“Quick as a flash, he stabbed me in the shoulder,” Kostelecky said. “I yelled, ‘Jesus Christ’ and put my hands up. He kept trying to stab me in the back.

“Then, he threw the pen at the judge and walked out.”

Kostelecky escaped with a puncture wound in his shoulder, a few marks on his back, and a dress shirt full of holes.
“I got a couple of stitches. He ended up being convicted of malicious wounding with a six-year sentence,” Kostelecky said.
Neither Zary nor Kostelecky was dissuaded from practicing.

Zary still sees clients at the jail in Manassas. “They’ve taken very good care of me at the jail since then,” she said.
“I’m a little more cautious now,” said Kostelecky, who was back doing commitment hearings three days after his injury.
Any lawyer who hopes to avoid the threat of violence by sticking with civil litigation would do well to remember the case of Kenneth E. Labowitz. The Alexandria lawyer underwent a horrifying nighttime ordeal in 2004 that arose out of his work as a guardian for an elderly woman.

Acquaintances of the woman, hoping to get their hands on part of her estate, kidnapped Labowitz from his home in the dead of night, drove him to an isolated area, beat him, and debated who would kill him as he stood at the edge of a makeshift grave.
One of the men pointed a gun at Labowitz’s head and told him to drop his case or the man would kill him and his family, according to a prosecutor.

He survived by promising to dismiss his legal action and not tell police. He escaped with a broken collarbone and several cracked ribs.

Labowitz’s principal attacker pleaded guilty to a number of felonies and was sent to prison for 54 years; one of the accomplices pleaded guilty and got 24 years.

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