An appointee to Charlie Crist's transition team could be a new excuse for political opponents of the attorney general-elect to revive their refrain from the just- conducted election campaign: "Chain Gang" Charlie doesn't have the ethical resolve to be Florida's top prosecutor.Among a group of Florida lawyers and businessmen who will help Crist analyze the budget, personnel and procedures of the attorney general's office is Darryl Rouson.
Rouson, a St. Petersburg lawyer, has been the subject of at least four complaints to the Florida Bar. One of those complaints resulted in a reprimand for attorney misconduct.
The 46-year-old father of four, who has publicly acknowledged past drug problems, also filed for bankruptcy liquidation earlier this year. A judge subsequently relieved Rouson of having to pay, among other debts, a decade's worth of federal income taxes, court records show.
In September, the judge discharged more than $522,000 of Rouson's debts, which included $361,263 in back income taxes from 1987 to 1997. Rouson, who drove a Jaguar at the time of his bankruptcy filing, got to write off everything from his $5,911 student loan to a $148 cell phone bill.
Rouson won't discuss his Chapter 7 bankruptcy with the media and abruptly ended an interview with the Planet.
The financial problems are just the latest difficulties for Rouson, who also serves as president of the St. Petersburg branch of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. Rouson's appointment to the Crist transition team is clouded by the Florida Bar inquiries.
In November 2000, the Bar publicly reprimanded Rouson for misconduct while he represented a criminal defendant.
Rouson used the mental state of his client as a defense in the case. An expert witness for the prosecution testified to a report he'd written on the defendant's mental condition. Not having been given the report, Rouson objected to it being mentioned in court. When the judge offered to allow Rouson time to read the report, he declined in order to keep its contents out of the trial testimony.
The jury then left the courtroom to deliberate. In the room alone, with the prosecution's files on a desk next to him, Rouson began to rummage through the files in an effort to find the expert's report. Rouson didn't realize that several attorneys were watching him on television monitors outside the courtroom.
Rouson's assistant entered the courtroom and told him that he could be seen on the outside monitors. When the judge returned, Rouson admitted to what he had done.
"Such conduct cannot be tolerated by your fellow lawyers, nor should it be tolerated by you," Bar referee Charlotte W. Anderson wrote in her reprimand.
In another case, Florida Bar records show Rouson represented a defendant in a civil dispute in which a woman sought $11,000 from his client.
Rouson's client admitted the woman took him on trips at her expense. When the relationship ended, the woman wanted to recover the money she'd spent on him.
Because of a payment dispute, Rouson did not appear for one of his client's hearings. Rouson had failed to withdraw himself from the case, causing the court to enter a default judgment against his client. The client, Marvin T. Flemmings, said Rouson told him that he couldn't represent him any longer because the case had become personal.
Frustrated by the $11,000 judgment against him, Flemmings confronted Rouson and threatened to file a complaint with the Florida Bar. "I don't give a damn if you go to the Bar," Flemmings quoted Rouson in his complaint as telling him.
After investigating the Flemmings complaint, the Bar ordered Rouson to attend a professional-enhancement program. "He did me wrong, man," Flemmings said. "He did me wrong."
Although some have complained about Rouson's actions as a lawyer, nobody can deny that he has turned the local NAACP into an aggressive force for greater diversity in Pinellas County.
Since Rouson become the St. Petersburg branch president, the NAACP has taken on both the St. Petersburg Times and Pinellas Sheriff Everett Rice. Rouson brought Times chief executive Andy Barnes and Rice to the bargaining table to address separate NAACP complaints about African-American representation in the upper ranks of the two powerful Pinellas institutions.
Yet another Bar grievance, however, raises questions about whether Rouson put himself in a conflict-of-interest situation, as he presses the NAACP's civil-rights agenda.
Last year, Belinda Parker, a civilian employee in Rice's agency, hired Rouson to represent her in an inquiry launched by the sheriff's internal affairs unit. The sheriff's office had questioned whether Lendel Bright, president of Minority Law Enforcement Personnel of Pinellas County, had a sexual relationship with Parker, his subordinate, or acted inappropriately during work hours.
Bright, who has alleged that discriminatory policies exist at the sheriff's office, said he believed the internal-affairs probe was payback for being an outspoken critic of the agency. (See "Minority Report," www.weeklyplanet.com/ 2002-07-10/news_feature.html.)
The investigation uncovered electronic mail between Bright and Parker that suggested the two knew each other on intimate basis. The sheriff's IA investigators could not prove that Bright had an inappropriate relationship with Parker. But Bright was demoted from sergeant to deputy for not informing his superior that Parker had told him of spousal abuse.
Mark Parker, Belinda Parker's husband, alleged that an affair between Bright and his wife did in fact take place. Belinda Parker, however, did not return calls from the Planet.
According to a complaint that Belinda Parker filed against Rouson with the Florida Bar, she scheduled several meetings with the attorney but he did not attend. She had hoped he could help her through the sheriff's IA probe.
After Rouson skipped a scheduled March 2001 meeting, Parker said he called her and, according to her complaint, explained that "he was making love to his wife and time just slipped by."
Two weeks later, according to Parker, Rouson told her that he was unsure he'd be able to represent her in the sheriff's investigation. The next day, Parker said she received a letter from Rouson informing her that he could no longer offer legal counsel. At the time, Rouson did not refund her full $1,500 retainer fee.
After reviewing Parker's complaint, the Florida Bar mediated a settlement that called on Rouson to refund the remainder of the retainer to Parker.
Private attorney Rouson represented a party in the IA investigation of Bright, who was trying to prove a pattern of discrimination at the sheriff's office, before NAACP President Rouson was pushing Rice to diversify the ranks of his sworn personnel.
Rouson wouldn't discuss the Belinda Parker case and any effect it might have on the NAACP's protests against Rice's employment practices.
The St. Petersburg NAACP's executive staff voted not to allow news media to attend its Dec. 3 meeting. Rouson agreed to be interviewed the next day. But he didn't return a call from the Planet.
Chris Kise, executive director of the Crist transition team, could not say for certain whether the team was aware of Rouson's Bar complaints or whether those complaints could affect his appointment. "It would depend on the nature of the inquiries or the nature of the charges," Kise said.
Rouson has previously said that he doesn't mind the media taking a critical look at him and his controversial past. Asked in October about a St. Petersburg Times story about his bankruptcy, Rouson commented: "I suspect that pure, good journalism believes my personal life to be newsworthy and, therefore, it is not vindictiveness."
Contact Staff Writer Trevor Aaronson at 813-248-8888, ext. 134, or trevor.aaronson@weeklyplanet.com.
This article appears in Dec 11-17, 2002.