INDIAN RIVER COUNTY — A thin, pale Dustinn Keeling sat in court recently, in shackles and an orange jail uniform while his attorney Bobby Guttridge tried to convince a judge to dismiss one of 15 criminal counts against him.
The count in question charges Keeling with illegally using Guttridge’s identity to steal $10,000 from someone.
A count that names Keeling’s defense attorney as his crime victim is a twist that the judge in the case – Robert Pegg – has called “the oddest thing I’ve seen in a case.”
If the count remains, argued Guttridge, he will “be forced to step out of the case and Mr. Keeling will be denied his choice of an attorney … which is his Sixth Amendment right to due process.”
Guttridge warned if that happens the case could be appealed and a conviction “subject to reversal.”
Keeling, 22, was charged in July with grand theft, writing worthless checks and other crimes after two local nonprofits, whose money he controlled, came up thousands of dollars short and a trail of evidence pointed to Keeling.
One of the nonprofits, the Haiti Clinic Foundation, helps provide medical services to the inhabitants of Port-au-Prince’s most impoverished slum.
At the age of 20 Keeling became chief fund-raiser for the charity. Instead of increasing its funds, according to the indictment and the nonprofit’s administrators, he stole over $20,000.
The second nonprofit, the North County Republican Club in Sebastian, voted Keeling in as president in 2011, again when he was 20. According to the indictment and club members, Keeling took over the club’s bank accounts, then looted more than $6,000 from them.
As Guttridge spoke in court with Keeling sitting next to him, looking up at him, Keeling’s family and friends, who filled a row in the courtroom, nodded with approval every time Guttridge made a point.
“The count should be dismissed because it violates my client’s right to the counsel of his choice which is the mechanism by which we ensure fairness in a case,” said Guttridge.
Prosecutor Chris Taylor didn’t see it that way. “The motion to dismiss is meritless,” he countered. “He (Keeling) does have a choice of attorneys. But he forfeits that choice when he implicates his attorney to commit a crime.”
Guttridge questioned how the court would ever know what the communication between his client and him was because it was privileged information.
What Guttridge will be asked to respond to under oath, said Taylor, will not violate their attorney-client privilege. To make his point, Taylor gave this example: (Keeling) made a fake e-mail from Guttridge to convince his aunt to give him $10,000.
“All Guttridge has to say (as a witness) is, ‘I didn’t write that e-mail,’ which does not violate attorney-client privilege,” said Taylor.
“That’s the first I’ve heard about an e-mail from me,” said Guttridge. “When I take depositions, I’ll be facing ethical problems (as a witness in the case), and I would have to withdraw.”
Guttridge then asked the judge: “What’s to stop the government from saying a lawyer is a witness to force the lawyer to withdraw?”
On the other hand, Taylor said, what’s to stop a defendant from claiming violation of attorney-client privilege, when he wrongfully uses his attorney’s name to commit a crime in order to get a lesser sentence?
“Keeling used his attorney’s name to steal money from another person. He is facing a three-year minimum mandatory sentence for that, and I’m sure he’d like the count dismissed,” said Taylor.
Pegg said he’d make a decision about whether to keep the count or dismiss it within 10 days.
