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Meehan’s act for intermission

Pat Meehan has been known to be an aggressive prosecutor of white-collar criminals, his most recent accomplishment being the successful indictment of former state Senator Vince Fumo (Meehan resigned as U.S. Attorney before the case went to trial). Fumo, charged with and later convicted for conspiracy to defraud the state Senate and two Philadelphia non-profits, is another relic of Philadelphia’s sleazy political landscape. There’s little doubt that his conviction will bolster Philadelphia’s confidence in its legal system, and Meehan, the prosecutor who pushed the case forward.

But as Fumo’s case was wrapping up, Meehan was working for Conrad O’Brien, a leading Philadelphia law firm that defends alleged corporate criminals. Pat Meehan will certainly be one of the best in the white-collar defense unit, considering his wealth of experience and intimate knowledge of the white-collar prosecution system. And so we have to wonder, as we see Fumo packing up for prison, and CEO’s testifying before Congress, just how deep Pat Meehan’s commitment to white-collar criminal prosecution is.

Pat Meehan was sworn into office in late 2001 as the U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania. As a federal prosecutor, he was clearly dedicated to prosecuting city officials who used their office for personal gain. Meehan served on the Corporate Fraud Task Force and also served on the White Collar Fraud Subcommittee of the Attorney General’s Advisory Committee. As U.S. Attorney, Pat Meehan helped direct prosecutors of corporate-level criminals, advising prosecutors on cases involving investment and accounting fraud. He was deeply involved in several high-profile cases, including the investigation of members of former Philadelphia Mayor John Street’s administration (Street himself was never accused of wrongdoing, though that didn’t stop the feds from famously putting a bug in his City Hall office).

Meehan’s career in public service ended last July when he entered private practice with Conrad O’Brien and started focusing on his likely gubernatorial run. In his resignation speech, Meehan said: “The conduct of a public official, who is acting on his own interest rather than the interest he or she is dedicated to serve, erodes the people’s confidence in government.”

Meehan is no longer a public official—for now—and while his resignation speech struck the right tone, it seems he may have quickly forgotten his desire to convict corrupt white-collar workers.

According to their Web site, Conrad O’Brien specializes in corporate litigation, class action lawsuits, and white-collar criminal defense. A press release announcing Meehan’s arrival at the firm said he would be working to represent “multi-national corporations and individuals in white collar criminal defense matters, internal corporate investigations and a wide range of corporate commercial litigation.”

Meehan’s years in public service were marked by his determination to prosecute white-collar offenders. In private practice, however, the firm says he would do just the opposite, defending alleged white-collar offenders.

To be fair, it is a tenet of our justice system that defending alleged criminals is just as noble a pursuit as trying to put them behind bars. And politicians enjoying these often-brief stints at law firms are rarely there to rack up lots of billed hours for their new employers. Rather, they’re more often using the office space and the temporary paycheck as a springboard to their electoral aspirations, while the firms benefit from having a political bigwig on staff.

Meehan’s spokeswoman Virginia Davis told me her boss had nothing to do with the kind of law practice Conrad O’Brien said he would.

“Pat Meehan is not representing white-collar defendants, but rather his focus has been on generating and participating in a regular civil practice as a part of the firm,” Davis wrote in an e-mail. Working at the firm, she said, is a way for Meehan to “properly balance his time between carrying out his firm responsibilities and exploring a candidacy for governor.”

“Pat is not handling any white-collar work at the firm at this time,” she added. “If anything comes into the firm in that issue area, it is referred to the appropriate professionals for resolution.”

I hope she’s right. At minimum, it seems clear that Meehan’s Conrad O’Brien job description will present opponents with easy fodder for political muckraking. They could easily use it to attack Meehan’s carefully crafted brand as prosecutor against corporate crime, champion of the people, and politician who is breaking the old corrupt ways of Philadelphia wheeling and dealing.

Although Meehan is no longer a public official—again, for now—we should look just as closely at the way he and all politicians act while out of office as we do when they’re in office. A U.S. Attorney who capitalizes off of his influential years helping to shape the state’s while-collar prosecution system should think twice about taking a job that includes in its description the defense of those that he fought so hard to incarcerate.

May 4, 2009 at 8:46 am

--Kenneth Elder

Tags: Conrad O'Brien, Pat Meehan, US Attorney, Vince Fumo

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