Former Bedford District Attorney has his license revoked | News, Sports, Jobs

The former Bedford County district attorney, who now works as an attorney at the Fleming Law Firm in Altoona, will have her license revoked for two years, effective August 15.

The decision to suspend Lesley Rae Childers-Potts was announced Tuesday by the state Supreme Court’s Disciplinary Council and stems from four cases Childers-Potts tried while serving as district attorney in Bedford County, court documents show.

Childers-Potts resigned as district attorney of that county on February 10, 2023.

According to the court, Childers-Potts was accused of misconduct for violating professional rules.

As outlined in the more than 40-page petition submitted to the Disciplinary Committee on May 30, the cases involve alleged murder, child rape, probation violations and drug offenses.

In all cases, Childers-Potts failed to act in a timely manner, the disciplinary committee concluded.

McCahan case

In Commonwealth v. Charles Victor McCahan, the death of Ouita McCahan was investigated by the Saxton County Police Department on January 19, 2022. On May 5, 2022, a State Police laboratory analysis revealed that Y-chromosome DNA from an unidentified individual was found on the fingernails of the woman’s left hand. The State Police laboratory report suggested that if a direct Y-chromosome DNA comparison was needed, a blood sample or cheek swab sample should be submitted.

More than a month later, on June 17, 2022, Charles McCahan was arrested and charged with the manslaughter of his mother. Due to the charge, he was denied bail and was incarcerated at the Bedford County Correctional Facility.

Court documents show that despite receiving the May 5, 2022, lab report, Childers-Potts failed to request a DNA sample from Charles McCahan.

In February 2023, the Attorney General’s Office took over the case. At an evidentiary hearing on February 13, 2023, it emerged that a cheek swab had been taken just two weeks earlier and submitted for DNA analysis.

In addition, Saxton Police Chief Frederick James Chadwick III stated during his interview that no direct evidence was found that McCahan was responsible for his mother’s death.

On March 2, 2023, the lab report on McCahan’s cheek swab was received and showed that his DNA did not match the DNA collected from his mother’s fingernails.

A few days later, McCahan, through his attorney, requested that the case be dismissed and all charges were dropped on May 17, 2023, 11 months after McCahan’s arrest.

Harris case

In Commonwealth v. Brian Wilson Harris, State Police filed charges against Harris on April 29, 2021, accusing him of raping a child. That same day, State Police obtained a warrant for his arrest.

About 10 months later, in February 2022, Harris was arrested. According to court documents, while Childers-Potts knew that 10 months had passed between the filing of the complaint and Harris’ arrest, he did not take active steps to prosecute him and open the trial, as required by law.

Two months after his arrest, on April 7, 2022, Childers-Potts filed a complaint in the case, and on May 20, 2022, Harris, through his attorney, filed a motion to dismiss the charges.

During an evidentiary hearing on July 26, 2022, the Disciplinary Committee reported that Childers-Potts had acknowledged April 29, 2021, as the start date for the Harris case, without any exclusion date in the intervening months.

When asked by the court whether she wished to challenge any of the dates or due diligence, Childers-Potts replied: “I don’t think there is a valid argument to be made here.”

Bedford County Judge Travis Livengood subsequently dismissed Harris’s charges, stating in a memorandum that Childers-Potts “decided not to try the case and stated that (the state) was ‘simply leaving it to the discretion of the court.'”

The opinion further stated that despite the delay in the trial, dismissal was not inevitable. Childers-Potts could have filed the criminal complaint immediately after Harris’ preliminary hearing on February 23, 2022, and asked that the case be set for jury selection. The opinion also noted that there were eight unused trial dates that would have been available for the case to be tried.

“Due to the Commonwealth’s lack of diligence, which violated (Harris’) constitutional right to a speedy trial, the charges must be dismissed,” the opinion states.

Kinzey case

A third case cited by the Disciplinary Committee involved a probation violation by Gordon Kinzey Jr., who pleaded guilty on April 26, 2016, to indecent assault on a person under 13 years of age and sexual intercourse with an animal.

Kinzey received a sentence of 3 to 6 years in prison, followed by five years of probation. On April 19, 2022, Kinzey was arrested and incarcerated in the Bedford Jail for violating the terms of his probation.

The panel said Childers-Potts failed to obtain a hearing on the probation violation “as quickly as possible.”

According to an email dated July 11, 2022, Childers-Potts admitted that no motion was filed because “we have not yet received the revocation package from the state parole board. As soon as we receive it, we will file the motion.” When told that Kinzey has been in Bedford Prison since his arrest in April, Childers-Potts stated that she would contact the state parole board about the matter.

On August 18, 2022, Childers-Potts received another email inquiring about the unfiled motion to revoke, stating that four months had passed since Kinzey’s incarceration.

Also on August 18, 2022, Kinzey filed a writ of habeas corpus through his attorney. A hearing on the motion was held on August 22, 2022, and also that day, Childers-Potts filed a motion to schedule a hearing on the probation violation charge, court records state.

In the end, the court found that the circumstances of the case violated any interpretation of the term “as soon as possible,” and Kinzey was released.

Crawley case

Another case the panel cited, Commonwealth v Tricia Ann Crawley, also involved Childers-Potts’ failure to file paperwork on time. In that case, the disciplinary panel said the necessary two-page motion to revoke Crawley’s probation would have taken the district attorney 15 minutes to draft and could have been drafted by support staff.

Crawley, who pleaded guilty to drug charges in June 2015, was indicted on August 10, 2021, in the United States District Court for the Western District of Pennsylvania on a charge of possession of fentanyl with intent to resell. She pleaded guilty on February 23, 2022, and was sentenced on June 27, 2022, to 15 months in prison, followed by three years of probation.

On July 6, 2022, she was incarcerated in the Bedford Jail for violating her probation and filed a petition for a writ of habeas corpus through an attorney on September 30, 2022, because no hearing had been scheduled.

The decision to suspend

In deciding to suspend her law license for two years, the panel said Childers-Potts has cooperated with the investigation and has not been subject to any disciplinary action in her more than 19 years as a member of the Pennsylvania Bar. She is also active in her community, volunteering for charitable programs and fundraisers.

When Childers-Potts resigned as Bedford County District Attorney in February 2023, she led the prosecution single-handedly after two assistant district attorneys resigned the previous year. As a result of those resignations, she transferred 36 criminal cases to the Attorney General’s Office.

In January 2023, after Chief Justice Travis Livingood accused Childers-Potts of being unprepared for the December 2022 trial, she emailed the Mirror and reported that trial preparations were complete. She also cited staffing issues, sharing, “I am still the only lawyer in the office and we are incredibly busy.”

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