A Lewis County Superior Court judge ruled Wednesday that Prosecuting Attorney Jonathan Meyer violated the appearance of impropriety in charging a Longview-based attorney with felony perjury in August.
Impropriety is defined in the state Code of Judicial Conduct as “conduct that violates the law, court rules, or provisions of this code, and conduct that undermines a judge’s independence, integrity, or impartiality.”
The code directs judges to “avoid both impropriety and the appearance of impropriety in their professional and personal lives.”
Judge James Lawler dismissed the case against Robert Thomas Lee, 31, on Oct. 19 without prejudice, meaning it can be refiled in the same court of law at a later date.
“If any further authority is available on the issue of dismissal with or without prejudice, the parties will present it,” Lawler wrote in his dismissal order.
Lee was accused of filing a declaration in Lewis County Superior Court on May 24 claiming he didn’t receive notice from the prosecutor’s office before it filed a motion for summary judgment in his client’s case.
However, Lee allegedly informed his client — identified in court documents as Toledo resident Kyle Wheeler — about the motion in email exchanges on May 9 and sent the full motion to his client on May 12, according to email records Wheeler provided the prosecutor’s office.
In the underlying case, Wheeler was suing Lewis County. Meyer and Deputy Prosecutor Amber Smith represented Lewis County in the lawsuit.
Lee’s attorney, Cooper Offenbecher, argued Meyer and Smith’s involvement in that lawsuit, as well as the “separate, independent history of significant public conflict” between Meyer and Wheeler, “cast an unshakable cloud of impropriety over Mr. Meyer’s decision to criminally charge Mr. Lee,” according to the dismissal motion.
Wheeler has previously worked to recall Meyer as elected prosecutor.
"There were significant mishandlings and people failed on both sides throughout this, which ultimately all impacted me personally,” Wheeler wrote in a statement to The Chronicle about the case on Friday. “As is mentioned numerous times in the full case filings, Prosecutor Meyer and I have an independent history of public conflict and I am not surprised to see concerns of impropriety associated with his name. Mr. Lee appears to have been successful in arguments I had previously been unable to make myself. I am glad to see Mr. Lee’s career will not be destroyed over a misstep seized on for political theater."
While Meyer argued for a judge to deny the dismissal motion because the court can’t rule on an issue or act outside of trial, Lawler found the prosecutor’s filing decision violated the appearance of impropriety and granted the dismissal motion.
“The court said that since Mr. Lee was an opposing party, it should have been another attorney, or another attorney's office, to look at the case,” Meyer told The Chronicle on Monday. “The court did not dismiss because of a lack of probable cause. The court found that there was sufficient information to go forward. The court just believed that another prosecutor's office should be the one to make that call.”
The Lewis County Prosecutor’s Office is in the process of sending the case to another prosecutor’s office for review, Meyer said.
If another county prosecutor’s office decides to pursue the case, charges will be filed in that county's superior court.
