Files Shared, License Lost

The Maryland Court of Appeals disbarred an attorney on consent in the wake of a guilty plea to federal charges, detailed in this announcement by the Office of the United States Attorney:

According to [the attorney's] plea agreement, on June 25, 2010, an undercover FBI agent in Newark, New Jersey, launched a publicly available file-sharing program, and saw that [he] was logged in and was sharing approximately 1,476 files. The undercover agent downloaded 22 images and six videos from [his] shared files. All of the downloaded images contained visual depictions of actual minors engaging in sexually explicit conduct. Further investigation revealed that in May 2010, [he] had paid $29.95 for access to the file-sharing program.

(Mike Frisch)