A former White House adviser who pleaded guilty in Montgomery County to stealing from Target stores has had his law license suspended in the District. A three-judge D.C. Court of Appeals panel ruled that Claude Allen’s license will be suspended for one year.
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That’s harsher than the 90-day suspensions he received in Virginia and Pennsylvania, but more lenient than the penalty of disbarment that the city’s Office of Bar Counsel was seeking.
Allen’s legal troubles began on Jan. 2, 2006, when he was arrested on a theft charge. Authorities said he pilfered a Bose stereo, Kodak printer and RCA stereo, all from Target stores in Montgomery County between October 2005 and January 2006.
At the time, Allen was an assistant to then-President George W. Bush on domestic policy, advising him on various domestic issues and leading the White House response to Hurricane Katrina. In 2003, he had been nominated to be a federal appeals court judge, but the nomination was ultimately blocked.
He pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor property theft charge in August 2006 and was sentenced to two years of probation, as well as community service and a fine.
Allen didn’t respond to a call for comment.
The court’s opinion says a 90-day suspension would have been “too lenient” for Allen’s “serious misconduct.” But the court found that his crimes did not amount to moral turpitude, which typically describes felonies and other actions that seriously violate standards of moral conduct. The Bar Counsel had argued that Allen’s crimes involved moral turpitude because they were “a well thought out and well-executed scheme marked by stealth and deception,” according to the opinion.
The opinion says Allen would purchase an item, then return to a Target with the receipt and grab a similar item from a shelf, which he would “return” using the original receipt. He would then end up with both the originally purchased item and the money he got from the return.
He testified at a Board of Professional Responsibility hearing that he would shop after or before work “to provide a buffer between his work and home lives and to relieve stress,” the opinion says. A forensic psychiatrist testified that Allen’s actions were caused by the “high stress” of his job.
The appeals court panel found that his crimes didn’t amount to moral turpitude because that stress impaired his impulse control and the thefts weren’t done for personal gain.
