Pres holds budget crisis Town Hall, asks faculty & OA’s to take pay cuts

That would be former President Dave Frohnmayer, in April 2009. The previous year Frohnmayer had negotiated a $150K raise for himself, and at the time of this public meeting he was negotiating a golden parachute retirement contract that  included a paid sabbatical which he used to restart his legal career at the Harrang, Long, Gary and Rudnick law firm.

Highlights include former Interim Provost Jim Bean lying about how UO’s administrative costs were 38% of our peers, and the news that given the crisis the athletic department would contribute $100K to help the library buy books. Rob Mullens soon put an end to that.

Frohnmayer and his stooges endured many sceptical questions from the staff, OA’s, and some faculty. Other faculty took this as an opportunity to indulge in some administrative brown-nosing. Watch it all:

Kate Brown signs legal aid bill that Frohnmayer and Gary opposed

3/7/2014 update: A year after the initially undisclosed lobbying efforts of HLGR’s Dave Frohnmayer and Bill Gary helped defeat the first attempt:

NEWS RELEASE

March 4, 2015

Governor Kate Brown Signs Legal Aid Bill

(Salem, OR) — Today, Governor Kate Brown signed House Bill 2700, sending unclaimed damage awards to legal aid, instead of going back to the company that was sued.

“This law makes Oregon’s class action laws fair for all Oregonians and ensures that corporations who are responsible compensate for the harm they have caused, and helps support our critically underfunded legal services,” said Governor Kate Brown.  link to photos

3/6/2014: Buying Dave Frohnmayer pays off big for Philip Morris and BP Legal aid bill defeated in Senate, 15-15:

The concern, expressed openly by several Republican senators, is that they will now be painted as wanting to help Big Oil and Big Tobacco – both targets of class action suits in Oregon — instead of the average or low-income voter.

Dave is obviously a talented lobbyist. I wonder why he couldn’t get the legislature to give deals like this to UO, back when he was president? We didn’t properly incentivize him?

2/23/2014 update: RG Editors dismiss Frohnmayer and Gary arguments, note 48 other states now do this, and support HB 4143.

2/22/2014 update: Steve Duin has an excellent review of the conflict of interest issues swirling around Frohnmayer’s opposition to HB 4143, which would take unclaimed damages from class action settlements against his clients like Philip Morris, and use it to fund legal aid for the poor. Currently Oregon lets the corporations have it back, if they can’t find the people it’s owed to. In the Oregonian, here:

Continue reading

Tobacco lawyer and oil company lobbyist Dave Frohnmayer quoted in the NYT

Here, in a story about state AG’s selling out to energy companies, in exchange for campaign contributions:

“When you use a public office, pretty shamelessly, to vouch for a private party with substantial financial interest without the disclosure of the true authorship, that is a dangerous practice,” said David B. Frohnmayer, a Republican who served a decade as attorney general in Oregon. “The puppeteer behind the stage is pulling strings, and you can’t see. I don’t like that. And when it is exposed, it makes you feel used.”

This is the same Dave Frohnmayer who shamelessly restarted his legal career at Harrang, Long, Gary,  and Rudnick while getting paid by UO for a sabbatical that was supposed to be used for research. He then let HLGR use his name to get UO’s lucrative legal contract, which is still costing us about $500K a year, and paying him who knows how much.

He then used his status as a UO Law Professor (which he keeps by teaching one single credit week long pass/fail law course each year) to add credibility to his arguments for big tobacco and against the state of Oregon, as described in Oregonian and in Willamette Week. He then lobbied the Oregon legislature – without registering as a lobbyist – in support of BP’s efforts to keep money from class action lawsuits against them to be used to pay for legal aid for the poor, as described in Oregonian and in Willamette Week:

Oregonian reports on HLGR’s latest effort to suck the state’s sugar tit dry,

as Huey Long would have put it.

Steve Duin has the latest doings of UO’s law firm. No word on what role Frohnmayer and Rudnick might play. Duin’s report on an earlier effort is here. And here’s the twisted story of how HLGR came to get the apparently endless UO legal services contract, just as they were hiring retiring UO President Dave Frohnmayer.

By my math UO and the state have paid Frohnmayer about $1.25M in PERS and about $750,000 in salary since he retired as president in summer 2009. About $250K of that salary was while he was restarting his legal career at HLGR. Add in whatever he got from the Long lawsuit – not to mention his work for big tobacco and for BP, lobbying to kill money for legal services for the poor. His UO salary won’t end until May 2015, docs here.

That $940K our Trustees just paid Gottfredson – also apparently negotiated by HLGR, at ~$300 an hour? It’s beginning to look like we got off cheap.

Live-blog lite: UO Trustees finance committee to meet Tu, 9AM, Room 403 Alumni Center

Packed agenda here.

Board of Trustees of the University of Oregon
Finance and Facilities Committee Meeting
June 3, 2014

Tuesday, June 3, 2014 – Public Meeting – Ford Alumni Center, Room 403

9:00am

1.0 Convene
 Call to Order and Welcome
 Roll Call

Looks like a full house, about 15 in the audience, Gottfredson and Geller made it. Lillis and others on the phone.

2.0 Review & Approve May Finance & Facilities Committee Meeting Minutes

3.0 Discussion of Optional Retirement Plans
 Background information – Retirement Plans
 Summary of Proposed Board Actions

Moffitt convenes, discusses transition of retirement plans from OUS to UO. UO will manage them fro all the other universities. Three plans: ORP (defined contribution plan, alternative to PERS), TDI optional, ORSP (OPR add on) special president’s golden parachute plan, as a PERS add on, with only ~$1M in assets. She and new treasurer seem on top of things. Plans have vendors, trustees, outside counsel, will be an easily transition. 30% elect ORP over PERS.

Connie Ballmer asks if there are any concerns about UO taking them over. Moffitt: no financial ones, we will need to do a search for a new director, will take co-operation between campuses. Geller: UO Board is taking over fiduciary responsibility. President’s special cash balance retirement plan is the oddity – includes Gottfredson.

4.0 Proposed Policies on Tuition and Fees

Committee endorses proposal. Ballmer complains how badly written it is.

5.0 Discussion of Proposed Repeal of Treasury Related Policies

Moffitt: Board will replace a bunch of financial policies under the president’s authority. Moffitt: OUS will approve the tuition and fees, but we need our own UO “fee book” with policies. Cleanup to remove Chancellor etc. Board will need to pass 3 resolutions along with new treasury operations manual, giving Moffitt power to borrow up the $5M, use the Oregon Treasurer to act as depository. Ballmer: is this standard for other higher ed institutions? Geller: They are standard, have been reviewed by UC, UW system, our bond counsel.

6.0 Summary of Proposed Board Resolutions Related to Treasury Operations

Lillis: When will we get our bond credit rating? Moffitt: We will have docs ready by Nov. 1st, and we will then move forward with our revenue bond program.

Moffitt: We have budget forecasts for your review and a spending authorization proposal for the full board. ~3% growth:

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Obviously the board isn’t going to stand for the sorts of redactions Moffitt gives the faculty:

7.0 Adjourn at 10:10.

Is Dave Frohnmayer still a UO law professor?

12/26/2013 update: Dave Frohnmayer and Barbara West will also co-teach a 199 Political Science course, “Theories of Leadership”. Experimental 199 classes are supposed to be reviewed and approved by the faculty Senate after 2 years. Frohnmayer and West, who is his former special assistant and holds a PhD in Jungian Psychology, have taught this for many years, with no review or approval.

12/23/2013: Reports are mixed. By UO’s normal tenure reduction rules he should now just be a retired emeritus. And in fact UO’s most recent payroll report lists his regular law professor appointment as having been terminated as of August 15, and his current title and job status as “emeritus”.

Screen Shot 2013-12-22 at 6.10.34 PM

On the other hand, his apparently recently updated Harrang Long et al bio still lists him as a UO law professor, as does this 10/11 ODE story on his appointment to the scandal ridden American Academy of Arts and Sciences. While Nigel Jaquiss’s “Reputation for Rent” story about Frohnmayer’s tobacco company work, published 9/25, identifies him as “part-time law professor” at UO. Of course many UO faculty are able to get teaching work at UO after full retirement, though they probably don’t get paid $34K for co-teaching one 19 student class in the honors college. He’s also signed up to teach a one credit week-long pass/fail class for the law school in spring. No idea what Moffitt will pay him for that.

Will the circle be unbroken? Bean has no contract?

7/31/2013: Back in July 2011 UO got in trouble with the State auditors for post-dating Frohnmayer’s retirement contracts and no bothering to specify what work he’d done for the money. Then Bean got in trouble with Davis for hiring his buddy John Moseley for an extended post-retirement gig without bothering to write a contract. Davis had to write another retroactive one while Bean was on sabbatical, and she chewed out Bean for it. Then in April 2013 Gottfredson announced Bean would “return to the faculty effective 7/1/2013” And now Bean is working for UO without a contract – if he’s still working for UO that is. From the UO Public Records Office yesterday:

The university does not possess documents responsive to your request for “a copy of the current employment contract(s) for James C. Bean“.  The office considers this information to be fully responsive to your request, and will now close your matter.  Thank you for contacting the office with your request.

My April 2012 request for docs on the unusual deals between Bean and Moseley, including the retroactive contract and Davis email, was quickly followed by Bob Berdahl’s clampdown on public records releases, which has continued under President Gottfredson. I did get the response above without having to pay a fee, but it took 11 days

Frohnmayer takes umbrage, RG calls for PERS transparency

2/3/2013 update. Former UO President Frohnmayer sends the email below, correcting several points on the post below, and giving his opinion on others. The last email I got from Frohnmayer also vaguely threatened a defamation lawsuit, but he dropped that after the state Audits Division told him he really was under investigation. He had to repay UO some money. UO was told to stop writing people retroactive contracts with no job duties. Contracts and audit report here. Here’s Frohnmayer’s latest letter:

From: Dave [email protected]
Subject: UO Matters carelessness
Date: February 3, 2013 7:44:57 PM PST
To: “[email protected]
Cc: Dave FROHNMAYER , Michael Moffitt , David Frank , “[email protected], “[email protected]

Dear Professor Harbaugh:

Your most recent self-styled “rant” (and smear) of January 27, 2013 in UO Matters has just come to my attention. You say:

“We’re paying Dave $100,514 a year for co-teaching 2 small classes on “leadership”….[and] a week long one credit pass/fail course in the law school.”

You both understate and misrepresent my active teaching responsibilities and other duties in my .50 FTE appointment in the University’s Tenure Reduction Plan in this academic year.These responsibilities include:

1). A peer-reviewed and invited 4 unit colloquium for the Clark Honors College, which — as if you did not know this— imposes an enrollment ceiling to maintain high quality standards;

2). A peer-reviewed and invited 4 unit freshman seminar, which also imposes an enrollment ceiling.

My colleague and I always enroll or exceed the maximum to accommodate an invariable waiting list. The student evaluations over many years of these two offerings have been among the strongest in the university in any discipline, both in terms of difficulty and quality.

3). A School of Law J-Term intensive 15-hour 1 unit experimental course in early January that received outstanding student reviews.

4). A 2 unit semester long course on state administrative law this winter and spring that was requested both by students and by School of Law administration.

5). I am instructor of record for a 3 unit semester long course on legislation this winter and spring.

In addition to these responsibilities, on an ongoing basis since my retirement from the presidency, I have performed numerous special assignments for my respective deans, two successive university presidents and numerous other university constituencies.

It is common knowledge that you have secured volumes of documents (at great expense to the university budget) that would easily have revealed the truth of what I relate. Your continuing carelessness seems attributable to malice, negligence or, regrettably, both. Your lack of attention to the most basic norms of a social scientist is a very poor reflection on your academic integrity and competence.

Since you have claimed in the past that you have received academic service credit for your self-styled blog “rants” of this kind, I take the liberty of informing your department and college of this latest example of your behavior.

Dave Frohnmayer

Sent from my iPad

Last year Frohnmayer took umbrage over Oregon Daily Emerald publishing this story about the Oregon SPJ giving me their “First Freedom” Award. Apparently at the insistence of his lawyers, the ODE website later posted a “clarification“:

In the article, we paraphrased UO Matters’ Bill Harbaugh saying “former University president Dave Frohnmayer was proposing pay cuts for faculty and Harbaugh found public records showing he had negotiated a big raise for himself with Chancellor Pernsteiner not long before.” Documents provided to the Emerald indicate that while Frohnmayer did get a raise, it was nine months before he asked the faculty to take cuts and months before a serious economic downturn. 

Additionally, while he was asking staff to take paycuts, Frohnmayer himself took a 7.6 percent paycut, the largest of any administrator.

I’m a little puzzled by Frohnmayer’s math. If you pull the unclassified salary reports at ir.uoregon.edu you get this for him:
February 2009: (before furlough scheme)

$225,700 12 months FTE at 100%, president
$18,333 12 month FTE at 100%, chair pay
$20,000 12 month FTE at 100% expense allowance (taken as salary)
$111,627 12 month FTE at 100% supplemental pay
$69,300 12 month FTE at 100% recognition award/stipend
$130,000 12 month FTE at 100% law professor (on leave no pay) 

May 2009: (after furlough scheme)

$225,700 12 months FTE at 92%, president
$18,333 12 month FTE at 100%, chair pay
$20,000 12 month FTE at 100%, expense allowance (taken as salary)
$111,627 12 month FTE at 100%, supplemental pay
$69,300 12 month FTE at 100%, recognition award/stipend
$130,000 12 month FTE at 100% law professor (on leave no pay)  

August 2009 

$245,700 12 months FTE at 100%, president emeritus

So, if you include all the various pots of salary he was getting, he took a furlough cut from $37,080 a month to $35,575, or about 4% per month, for about three months. Call it about 1% for the year. His furlough plea was for faculty and OA’s to take 5% cuts.
I’m also a little confused by Frohnmayer’s dates. He did get one big raise from Pernsteiner in 2008, and that was indeed before the furlough scheme, as his clarification indicates. But his retirement contract also included a very nice raise, however you calculate it. And many other special emoluments as well. 
So, was Frohnmayer really negotiating with Pernsteiner for a nice retirement deal for himself at the same time he was trying to persuade the rest of us to take 5% furlough pay cuts? It sure looks that way to me. His contract is here. The Oregon Audits Division report on it is here. The furlough town hall was 4/14/2009, video of Frohnmayer pitching the furloughs to the faculty and OA’s is here. And here’s an email from OUS chief lawyer Ryan Hagemann, saying Frohnmayer’s contract had not been finalized as of 4/29/2009:
From: “Hagemann, Ryan” <[email protected]>
Subject: Public Records Requests
Date: April 24, 2009 11:16:29 AM PDT
To: “Bill Harbaugh” <[email protected]>

Professor Harbaugh:
I have returned from the road, and am in receipt of your two public records requests.  Generally, you have requested President Frohnmayers post-presidential agreements and the contract, and other agreements, for incoming President Larivere.  For your information, Professor Harbaugh, to my knowledge, neither of these agreements have been finalized.  I have a proposal for your consideration:  if you would be willing to withdraw these two requests, I would be willing, when I receive these finalized agreements in my office, to forward them to you at no cost.  That way, you would not need to make a new public records request; Id just forward to you when I receive. 
Would that work?  If not, I would be more than happy to process your request and get you an acknowledgement letter!
Thanks for your consideration,
Ryan
R y a n   J a m e s   H a g e m a n n
Legal Counsel & Secretary to the Board
Oregon University System

After I raised questions about the legality of this $245,700 emeritus contract UO renegotiated it according to the standard rues, leaving Frohnmayer at $201K with an 0.5 FTE and with fully specified teaching and research responsibilities. Saved UO a good $145K, that did. Contracts here.

1/27/2013. It’s starting to seem like a movement. They even call out Frohnmayer, when discussing Kitzhaber’s plans to cap the COLA:

A number of prominent Oregonians found themselves the subjects of unwanted attention when Kroger raised the curtain two years ago. Among them was former University of Oregon athletic director Mike Bellotti, who received the biggest PERS pension of them all — $41,342 a month. No. 4 on the list was Steve Goldschmidt, who represented the Eugene School District during a 1987 teachers’ strike, whose monthly check was $21,517. Former UO President Dave Frohnmayer came in at No. 5, with $21,207.

From what I can tell from the UO salary data, we’re also paying Dave $100,514 a year for co-teaching 2 small classes on “leadership”, with his former special assistant Barbara West – not sure what she gets. Also can’t find any evidence that the Senate Curriculum Committee ever approved his courses. He also teaches a week long one credit pass/fail course in the law school – so he’s a “law professor” when he’s out soliciting clients for HLGR. To top it off he got a lot of deferred compensation from UO, so the PERS number is an underreport of his total state paid retirement income. Contracts here. OK, I’m done with this rant for a while, sorry.

Why Dave Frohnmayer is not an acceptable interim President

Update: Frohnmayer is now out and I’m not going to waste my time finishing this post. If you still care, links to all the documents mentioned below are available on this site, just click on the labels below. Email me if you want a copy of his email threatening me with a “defamation per se” lawsuit over the state audit of his contracts.


12/4/2011: Rumor is that Jim Bean has withdrawn his candidacy or will as soon as he checks his email. That leaves Frohnmayer as the Board’s leading potential insider alternative to Berdahl.

Here is Frohnmayer’s 2009 golden parachute sabbatical contract, negotiated with his pal George Pernsteiner. It took me three months and two petitions to the DOJ to force OUS lawyer Ryan Hagemann to produce this contract. It’s not hard to see why. Here’s a video clip of Frohnmayer trying to convince the UO faculty to go along with Pernsteiner’s plan for “voluntary furloughs.”

This was right after Pernsteiner had given Frohnmayer a $150,000 bonus, and taken a raise for himself – which OUS spokesperson Di Saunders then tried to hide from the Oregonian, just as they’d tried to hide Frohnmayer’s previous raises, and who paid for them.

Frohnmayer spent his sabbatical restarting his legal career, not doing the research he claimed he would do. Here’s the state audits division investigation report. He had to write a check refunding UO money.

He was paid for retroactive summer contracts Russ Tomlin set up for him, after the lack of written contracts had been reported. Shades of Mike Bellotti.

Frohnmayer never accepted responsibility for Bellotti, but blamed it all on his scapegoat, Melinda Grier. That’s leadership for you.

He appointed Pat Kilkenny AD, after Kilkenny started making large donations to his Fanconi Foundation. Two weeks before stepping down as President he signed a secret deal with Kilkenny, giving the athletic department half off on overhead and requiring the academic side to pay them $375,000 for using the Autzen skybox.

Here’s his current 600 hours contract with the Law School. Michael Moffitt is now keeping him on a short leash, spelling out what research he (or more likely his former special assistant, Jungian psychologist, and current “leadership” co-teacher Barbara West) must accomplish this year:
 
Dave’s first 5 years at UO were pretty good for UO. Then came the WRC, Pat Kilkenny, the post-heart-surgery personality changes, the anger, the contempt for the faculty, the sell-outs, and the special deals for his friends in the central administration: John Moseley, Lorraine Davis, Dan Williams.

Rumor is that Frohnmayer’s former secretary Carol Rydbom spent a year combing through his presidential papers (while on the UO payroll, of course) before transferring them to the UO archives. I wonder what was in the parts that didn’t make the cut? I wonder what she missed, and what is in those letters and emails that did make it into the archives.

No more of Frohnmayer’s old guard. No more Frohnmayer. Unacceptable.

Top PERS include Bellotti and Frohnmayer

From the SJ. More in this Oregonian story. The searchable list of all with annual payout > $100,000 is here. Many familiar UO names.

Top 10 (based on 10-1-11 Gross Monthly Allowance)

1. Robert Bellotti: $41,341.67
2. Frederick Keller: $31,459.45
3. Lesley Hallick: $23,917.22
4. Steven Goldschmidt: $21,517.24
5. David Frohnmayer: $21,027.21
6. Peter Kohler: $20,252.33
7. Frank Anderson: $20,209.13
8. William Korach: $20,068.81
9. Peter Vonhippel: $19,677.95
10. Anthony Montanaro: $19,477.82

Here’s a copy of Frohnmayer’s golden parachute contract.  Here’s the State Audits Division report on his contract – which notes a few irregularities with it and the retroactive no work summer contracts VP Russ Tomlin wrote Frohnmayer:

Word down at the faculty club is that Frohnmayer will be picking up another $100,000 or so for teaching 3 classes this spring. Two of them are “Leadership” courses in Political Science and the Honors College, co-taught with his former special assistant and Jungian psychologist Barbara West.  The other is a 1 credit, week long course in the law school.

UO bosses defend pay raises

9/3/2011: That’s the headline of today’s RG story by Diane Dietz:

When University of Oregon President Richard Lariviere returns from today’s football game in Texas, he will have to produce a report justifying why the UO gave pay raises worth about $1.9 million a year to about 390 administrators several months ago. George Pernsteiner, chancellor of the Oregon University System, asked for the report Friday, a day after The Register-Guard publicized the raises.

Lariviere and Bean do an OK job defending the raises. There is not a word in the story on Pernsteiner or Kenton‘s pay and perks. UO students pay for Pernsteiner’s maid service, mortgage and his morning croissant and the RG is bragging they are making *Lariviere* explain where the tuition money is going?

Why does the RG hate Lariviere, and leave it up to the Oregonian to investigate OUS? The story has this from former OUS Board Chair Paul Kelly (still on the board):

That’s why higher education board member Paul Kelly Jr., a private-sector attorney, said he was very surprised to learn Friday about the UO raises. The education board oversees the state university system, including the UO. It would be nice to give every deserving employee a raise, but it would not be affordable, he said.

Yes, Kelly is the model of fiscal caution when it comes to raises for staff making $30,000 a year. But here’s his signature on Dr. Pernsteiner’s May 2010 contract, giving him a *retroactive* raise and perks that now total well over $350,000:

 

That last one was the subject of this audit by the Secretary of State’s Audits Division, which concluded

Yes, it would not be affordable to give the staff raises. There would be no UO tuition money left over to dole out to Paul Kelly’s buddies.

Frohnmayer repays salary to UO

7/20/2011: When UO President Dave Frohnmayer retired he negotiated a very sweet retirement deal with OUS Chancellor George Pernsteiner. Too sweet. A week after someone raised questions about the unusual salary Frohnmayer received last summer – no work expectations and 3 retroactive contracts – Frohnmayer had to write UO out a personal check, reimbursing us for a chunk of it. The SOS Audits division looked into this and wrote a report identifying some other issues as well.

He’s no longer on the UO payroll. I don’t think I’ll post the report. I suppose the photocopy of his check is a public record, but whatever. He is still listed as a law professor – helps get clients, I suppose – and he still has his office suite in Chapman. But he paid us back, and he’s off the payroll – good enough for me.

Frohnmayer threatens defamation suit

6/9/2011: UO Matters has put up a few posts about the SOS Audit Division investigation of UO President Emeritus Dave Frohnmayer’s peculiar golden parachute contracts with OUS and UO. Now he’s threatening us with a defamation lawsuit and “a claim for punitive damages.”

From: “Dave Frohnmayer”
Date: June 8, 2011 3:16:49 PM PDT
To: (Professor X)

Subject: Re: public records request, Frohnmayer, Grier contracts and job descriptions

Dear Professor X and Colleagues: A cursory call to the Oregon Secretary of State confirms that the Audits Division is NOT “currently investigating” my contractual arrangements. Professor X’s  assertion, as he has communicated it, is actionable as defamation per se, and in view of his  course of conduct in recent years, likely subject to proof of actual malice that could justify a claim for punitive damages. Dave Frohnmayer

Sent from my iPhone

Dave’s an awesome texter, for an old guy. I’d have cooled off and thought better of sending this before I’d pecked out half as much spittle.

Update: In fairness to Frohnmayer, from what I’ve been able to piece together on this so far it appears the Audit Division had not told him they were looking into his contracts. They also apparently hadn’t told Secretary of State Kate Brown. So, presumably, when Dave called her she said something like “I’ve never heard of this” and he ran with that.

An honest mistake, and UO Matters has no plans to seek punitive damages from Professor Frohnmayer, despite his course of conduct in recent years. We just want him to explain his special retirement and sabbatical deals, and repay the retroactive summer salary Russ gave him.

Frohnmayer files bar complaint

5/19/2011: In case you were wondering what UO’s best paid professor is up to now. Jeff Manning in the Oregonian:

Two influential Oregon lawyers have accused the current top criminal lawyer in the state Justice Department of lying to suspects to intimidate them, which they claim violates Oregon State Bar ethical rules.

Bill Gary and Dave Frohnmayer filed a complaint Friday with the Oregon State Bar accusing Sean Riddell, the Justice Department’s chief criminal counsel, of violating at least four bar ethics rules during the course of an investigation of an Energy Department contract. Gary and Frohnmayer represent Mark Long, former Energy Department interim director.

“Mr. Riddell repeatedly and unequivocally lied to witnesses and coerced and intimidated them in order to deceive those witnesses into making statements that Mr. Riddell could then use to make unfounded charges against the targets of his investigation,” wrote Gary and Frohnmayer. “As a direct result, innocent individuals have had their lives turned upside down and their careers and reputations irreparably damaged. Mr. Riddell’s actions have wasted hundreds of thousands of tax dollars and have damaged the credibility and the integrity of the criminal justice system.” 

Lying lawyers. I’m shocked. The full complaint is here. I was so naive before reading this reality check from Dave – a man known across campus for his probity. He must truly be appalled. And this Riddell chap seems to have sold his soul on the cheap too. Very bad precedent. The bar will be all over him for that.