Insurrectionists Left Holding the Bag When Their Flaky Defense Lawyer Vanishes, It’s Pure Black Comedy

It was funny when Elwood P. Dowd had an invisible rabbit friend named Harvey but it is not the least bit amusing to 17 Capitol insurrectionists who find themselves with an invisible lawyer named John Pierce. Client abandonment is not a good thing, generally speaking, and the manner in which this is being done is downright farcical. Believe me when I tell you that this is the kind of “insider” humor that has many a lawyer reading this now howling.

Pierce practices in Los Angeles and last week his “law partner” Ryan Joseph-Gene Marshall reported that Pierce was stricken with COVID-19 and on a ventilator and that’s why he missed a client’s hearing. I put law partner in quotes because Marshall has a law degree but is not licensed to practice anywhere. I also had a law degree and worked in law firms in Los Angeles doing legal writing and trial prep, but I sure wasn’t a partner, let alone one in a firm characterized as “the fastest growing law firm in the world.” But Marshall is only one of the colorful legal characters who are a part of this tale. Daily Beast:

Pierce, 49, had last been in touch with prosecutors on Aug. 23.

That evening, a self-described colleague of Pierce’s named Brody Womack told NPR reporter Tom Dreisbach in a statement that Pierce was in the hospital for symptoms he thought might have been COVID-related, but were in fact the result of “dehydration and exhaustion.” (Womack, who could not be reached by The Daily Beast, has a commercial driver’s license but no law license, according to a public records search of his name.) The day before, Marshall told the judge in another case that Pierce had been in an accident of some sort, and was on his way to the hospital at that time. Later, a source close to Pierce said he had been hospitalized but insisted that he was not on a ventilator.

The next day, Marshall—who said he recognized Womack’s name as being “a friend of John’s,” but otherwise didn’t know who he was—said he remained in the dark.

“I still don’t know what John’s exact condition is,” Marshall told The Daily Beast, adding that he would “be fine, and able to handle” the caseload on his own. “What I told you was what I was told. I have never been told anything by anyone else to the contrary.”

Marshall, who graduated from law school in 2019 but is not a licensed attorney, subsequently admitted in court that he hadn’t actually spoken directly with Pierce. Further, explained Marshall—who is under criminal indictment in Pennsylvania on 15 felony charges stemming from an alleged scheme that bilked an elderly widow out of $86,000—he had gotten different stories about Pierce’s condition from others in the missing lawyer’s orbit.

The Daily Beast tried unsuccessfully to reach Pierce via phone, text, and email. His office lines are no longer in service, and a contact number he submitted with his last court filing went straight to an unidentified voicemail box. A cellphone number listed for Pierce on his former firm’s website connects to a voicemail message with a woman’s voice telling callers, “This is no longer the number for John Pierce. Please do not leave a message.”

Prosecutors said that because Marshall has not been admitted to any state bar, he should not be allowed to do the work he has been doing for Pierce’s clients.

“The United States thus finds itself in a position where this defendant and 16 other defendants charged in connection with the Capitol riot appear to be effectively without counsel,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Anne McNamara wrote in an Aug. 30 notice sent to all 17 defendants represented by Pierce. “From the government’s perspective, given Mr. Pierce’s reported illness and the fact that Mr. Marshall is not a licensed attorney, this case is effectively at a standstill.”

And you’re going to love this. John Pierce is a soul mate of Lin Wood, insofar as they both represented Kyle Rittenhouse at one point. Wood was fired after ripping Rittenhouse off, likewise it was feared that a cash-strapped Pierce would do the same thing, so they parted company.

Ryan Marshall can’t practice law without a license, so he did go and find a lawyer who actually had a bar card. The only problem with this is that she’s a bankruptcy attorney not criminal defense. But hey — don’t count this gal out. This could be the next Jenna Ellis in the making, from traffic court to constitutional law expert on right-wing media. This is how things go nowadays.

Marshall said he had located a licensed lawyer to assist with Pierce’s Jan. 6 caseload, but that she was a bankruptcy attorney, not a criminal defense attorney, who is permitted to practice in Alabama and Florida. However, this person is also sick, and could not appear until a later date, Marshall said.

Lee [an insurrectionist] told Magistrate Judge Zia Faruqui that she wanted him off her case and would prefer to be represented by public defender Cara Halverson.

“These are pretty unique circumstances,” Faruqui responded, asking Lee if she would be comfortable having Pierce on her defense team as co-counsel when—if—he resurfaces. Halverson nixed the idea, saying that she was bothered by Pierce’s fundraising activities.

With Pierce AWOL, at least 17 Jan. 6 defendants are now, effectively, without counsel.

The fundraising activities referred to are Pierce raising money for Kyle Rittenhouse.

It’s all about grifting. The day and age we live in has a lot of very strange characters in it, and when Donald Trump got to where he got, it was like moving a rock away from a tunnel to the depths of Hell. The worst people in our culture saw their opportunity to make a fuss and a fortune and they all came out en masse.

It looks at this point like the only one to defend the Capitol insurrectionists, or “political prisoners” as she calls them, is Sidney Powell.