A criminal defense lawyer has been stripped of his law license for two years after he pleaded guilty to dodging his taxes.
Navron Ponds was disbarred Thursday in a terse, one-page order by the D.C. Court of Appeals. He had already been disbarred in Maryland.
Thursday’s order winds up nearly a decade of litigation surrounding Ponds, who went from criminal defense lawyer to criminal defendant after the U.S. Attorney’s Office charged him with ducking his taxes in 1988, 1990 to 1994, and again from 1996 to 1999. The case began after Ponds was accused of taking a luxury automobile from a drug dealer and helping his client hide the vehicle from the government.
After an 11-day trial in 2003, a D.C. jury convicted Ponds of tax evasion, wire fraud and other tax crimes. Ponds appealed and convinced judges of the D.C. Circuit Court that prosecutors had violated a limited-immunity agreement.
He later accepted a plea deal.
Until his arrest, Ponds had been a high-living lawyer with an expensive apartment on Connecticut Avenue and a Porsche with license plates “I OBJECT.” He was probably best known for his 1995 defense of a North Potomac millionaire who was accused of snatching a neighbor’s German shepherd and trying to ransom it for $10,000.
“What would make this dog worth $10,000?” Ponds asked a local newspaper. “He’s not Rin Tin Tin. Morris the Cat you might get $10,000.”
According to court records, Ponds ran afoul of authorities after he agreed to defend accused drug dealer Jerome Harris in 1996. Rather than take cash as a retainer, Ponds had Harris’ mother give him a white 1991 Mercedes-Benz, which he parked next to the Porsche.
Harris later accepted a plea deal, but when asked to identify all his assets, he didn’t mention the Mercedes. Prosecutors later searched his cell and found a copy of Harris’ retainer agreement with Ponds. They convened a grand jury to investigate Ponds.
Efforts to reach Ponds for this story were unsuccessful.
