Charles Daum, an attorney in Washington, D.C. was charged in a seven-count indictment along with two private investigators.
Prosecutors on Thursday unsealed an indictment charging a 64-year-old criminal defense attorney in Washington for his alleged participation in a scheme to fabricate evidence to benefit a client charged in a drug trafficking case.
The attorney, Charles Daum, a solo practitioner in the District, was charged in a seven-count indictment along with two private investigators.
The indictment said Daum was part of a plan to produce evidence to convince jurors that the drugs police seized from a client actually belonged to another person. Daum was charged with, among other crimes, three counts of influencing a juror and two counts of inducing perjury.
The charges against Daum and the two investigators stem from Daum’s representation of a man named Delante White, indicted on federal drug charges in March 2008. Investigators said a search warrant turned up crack cocaine, $2,000, firearm ammunition, a digital scale and other items.
In the case against Daum, prosecutors allege the attorney enlisted the help of two private investigators to obtain duplicates of items the authorities seized during the execution of the search warrant in the 600 block of Hamlin Street in Northeast Washington in February 2008.
Prosecutors said the investigators, Daaiyah Pasha, 60, of Washington, D.C., and Iman Pasha, 31, of Springfield, Va, arranged to take a staged photograph of White’s brother with the items. The photographs would show White’s brother cutting cocaine to convince jurors the drugs the police seized did not belong to White.
The plan, according to the government, also included the creation of a false lease agreement to show that White was living in Maryland and not at the one-bedroom apartment the authorities raided. At the time of his arrest, White’s driver's license had him living at the one-bedroom apartment in Northeast.
In September 2008, Daum filed court papers in White’s drug case that his brother, if anyone, “was the sole possessor” of the drugs that were at the center of the prosecution. Daum submitted the photos as evidence in White’s trial before U.S. District Judge Paul Friedman.
Copy of the 16 page indictment:
http://legaltimes.typepad.com/files/daum-pasha-indictment.pdf
Link:
http://legaltimes.typepad.com/blt/2011/04/dc-defense-lawyer-charged-in-scheme-to-fabricate-evidence.html