Was it love or lust that cost the attorney appointed by Gov. Joe Manchin to head the West Virginia Office of Consumer Advocacy his license to practice law last week?
According to the Opinion of the West Virginia Supreme Court that defrocked him, lawyer G. Patrick Stanton, Jr. entered the Prunytown Correctional Facility in Taylor County in October 2005 to see a female inmate, Rose Auvil. Stanton told prison officials that he was Ms. Auvil's attorney. But as the Director of the West Virginia Office of Consumer Advocacy, Stanton could not practice law privately. That was his first mistake.
His second mistake—and it was a doozey—was getting caught in the inmate interview room having sex with the inmate femme fatale.
Prison officials were not amused.
Neither was the West Virginia Supreme Court, which rejected a recommendation by a disciplinary panel that the lustful lawyer merely be suspended in favor of booting him permanently out of the profession.
Stanton had represented Auvil in the past, but he had also engaged in a sexual relationship with her that dated back to 1986. Stanton admitted that he had lied to a corrections official over the phone to schedule an attorney-client visit with the woman.
Stanton had been a lawyer in West Virginia since 1979.
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