BOSTON — Disciplinary hearings are underway against two lawyers who put Brockton’s Frances Choy behind bars for 17 years until a judge freed her.
John E. Bradley Jr. and Karen H. O’Sullivan prosecuted Frances Choy when they worked as assistant district attorneys for Plymouth County. They won the case, convincing a jury that she burned down her parents’ Brockton home in 2003. Both her mother, Anne, and father, Jimmy, died as a result of the arson. A judge threw out the convictions in 2020, citing evidence of racial bias and other factors.
The Board of Bar Overseers, an independent office created by the Supreme Judicial Court, monitors attorney conduct in Massachusetts. Their investigations can cost lawyers their law license, suspend them from practicing law and other penalties.
Bradley came out swinging in a 39-page response, saying the allegations are false and calling them “the product of lies, recklessness and corruption.”
O’Sullivan, in a similar court filing, denies that she did anything wrong to warrant discipline.
Racially offensive emails
The Board of Bar Overseers alleges three main examples of alleged misconduct by Bradley and O’Sullivan. First, the board contends that the two traded racially offensive, derogatory and unprofessional emails and images about Frances Choy and Kenneth Choy, Jimmy Choy’s grandson by a previous relationship.
The watchdog board cited seven emails between Bradley and O’Sullivan in its petition for discipline.
Bradley contends the emails were “altered to make them appear to be racially offensive, derogatory and unprofessional.” He said the emails contain irregularities that call their authenticity into question. One email had an ellipsis with 10 dots in the subject line. Bradley said his longtime coworker, Assistant District Attorney Frank Middleton, commonly used ellipses that way.
O’Sullivan copped to exchanging four “unprofessional” emails with Bradley about Kenneth Choy but denied they were “racially offensive or derogatory.” She denied sending three emails about Frances Choy.
More: These racist emails unraveled Brockton murder case — sparking cover-up, retaliation claims
“I did it as a poor attempt to joke, and that was my only intention,” she told the panel during a Friday, March 29 hearing, referencing the comparisons of Kenneth Choy with Long Duc Dong.
Another email exchange came after a fire at the damaged Choy residence while Frances Choy was in custody. O’Sullivan says she was being sarcastic when she wrote Frances Choy should be nulle prossed, which is Latin legal lingo for prosecutors dropping charges. “It was a poor attempt at making a joke,” O’Sullivan told the board, adding that it had nothing to do with her beliefs as to Frances Choy’s guilt or innocence.
Failure to disclose exculpatory documents
Second, the board claims the prosecutors failed to disclose a missing person’s report and police log entry to Frances Choy’s defense counsel at trial, Joseph Krowski Sr. These documents could have been used to show Kenneth Choy had a motive for arson and murder and to impeach him as a witness.
Bradley said he did provide the missing person’s report to defense counsel. The allegation that he kept it secret is based on defense attorney Joseph Krowski Jr., the Plymouth County District Attorney’s Office and Superior Court Judge Linda Giles. Bradley wrote that the allegation “is predicated on the word of a proven liar, Attorney Krowski; a vindictive PCDAO; and unconscionably negligent judge.”
As to the police log, Bradley argues it merely contains the same information as the missing person’s report.
For her part, O’Sullivan said she was not involved in the “discovery” phase of the case, where both sides must reveal their evidence to the other.
Flawed closing remarks to jury?
Third, the watchdog agency says that Bradley misstated evidence about Kenneth Choy in his closing remarks during France Choy’s third trial. A jury had previously acquitted Kenneth Choy of murder. He was a prime witness…
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