MARYSVILLE — A courtroom romance between a former city prosecutor and a public defender could throw into question more than 300 cases in Marysville, according to documents recently obtained by The Daily Herald through a public records request.
Former Marysville city prosecutor Al Treacy and defense attorney Marne Whitney — at the time working with the city-contracted Feldman & Lee law firm — often were adversaries at Marysville Municipal Court, where they handled misdemeanor cases. They also were in a consensual sexual relationship from at least August 2019 to March 2020, unbeknownst to their respective supervisors and clients.
Last June, they quietly departed their jobs. Treacy, a 12-year veteran at the city prosecutor’s office, resigned before he could be fired. And Whitney, who is referred to as Marne Koerber in documents, was fired and reported to the Washington State Bar Association as soon as the “inappropriate relationship” was discovered, according to Brandon Feldman, a partner with Feldman & Lee.
Treacy didn’t provide a comment for this story. Through an attorney, Whitney disputed some of what Treacy told higher-ups at the city, including the length of the relationship. According to her version of events, the relationship started in May 2019, not long after she joined Feldman & Lee, and didn’t end until June 2020.
“Mr. Treacy may have provided the City of Marysville with either misleading or self-serving information,” wrote Whitney’s attorney, Kenneth Kagan, “possibly with a view toward improving his future employment prospects, possibly with a view toward improving the state of his marriage, and possibly due to concerns that there would be an investigation undertaken by the Washington State Bar Association.”
After an internal investigation, Marysville chief administrative officer Gloria Hirashima recommended in a letter that the city fire Treacy, calling his policy violations “significant and serious.” She acknowledged relationships can form in the workplace, but this romance violated state court rules of professional conduct and presented a legal liability.
“His conduct undermines the City’s responsibility to provide effective legal counsel to indigent defendants,” Hirashima wrote. “His conduct was harmful to our criminal justice system as well as members of the public and decreases faith in our court system. Mr. Treacy’s actions do not meet the expectations for integrity in the City’s Legal Department.”
City spokesperson Connie Mennie wrote in an email to The Herald that Treacy chose to resign when he was notified of the investigation’s findings. He was not asked to resign, and no severance agreement or settlement was reached as part of his departure.
Treacy officially submitted his resignation on June 12, handwritten on a yellow legal notepad. He had worked for the office since 2008. He was recognized for perfect attendance in 2016 and 2019.
Hirashima wrote that the city will now have to review the cases Treacy and Whitney handled during their relationship and potentially reopen some of them. Feldman & Lee has notified more than 300 defendants of potential impacts on their cases, Mennie told The Herald. Of those, three have been assigned new court-appointed attorneys, though no further court action has been taken.
Documents pointed to two rules of professional conduct that Treacy violated in regard to the client-lawyer relationship. RPC 1.7 states a lawyer should not represent a client if “there is a significant risk that the representation of one or more clients will be materially limited by the … personal interest of the lawyer.” And RPC 1.8 explains that a lawyer should not represent a client if he or she has an intimate or familial relationship with the opposing lawyer, unless the client gives informed consent.
During the internal investigation, Treacy told human resources manager Teri Lester that he didn’t give much consideration to whether his relationship violated the rules of professional conduct. He and Whitney had talked about the conflict of interest early in their relationship, he reported, but ultimately they continued seeing each other. He didn’t research the issue himself, nor did he consult anyone. According to Treacy, Whitney said she had looked into it and determined there was no conflict of interest, but he couldn’t recall how she had come to that conclusion.
Treacy also told Lester he didn’t inform any clients of the potential conflict of interest. As a prosecutor, he said, he didn’t view himself as having clients, but rather that he represents “the people,” according to documents. As such, he didn’t think to divulge his relationship, even when he and Whitney worked against each other. To his knowledge, Whitney didn’t tell her clients, either.
According to Treacy’s account to the city, his relationship with Whitney ended in March, after his wife learned of it. The breakup was not mutual, Treacy noted.
But Kagan, Whitney’s attorney, claims that is not entirely truthful. While their physical relationship ended on April 12, they continued to talk and text on a regular basis.
“To the extent Mr. Treacy may have minimized the duration of the relationship, or the way a crucial component of it continued for nearly two months beyond the discovery of the physical relationship by Mr. Treacy’s spouse, he is not being honest, and that dishonesty can be demonstrated,” Kagan wrote.
Treacy and his wife reportedly decided to divulge the relationship to his and Whitney’s employers in June, apparently to inform the Feldman & Lee firm that Whitney was planning some sort of legal action against her bosses. Treacy and his wife are friends with David Lee, a managing partner of Feldman & Lee, according to documents.
Kagan said Treacy was actually supportive of Whitney’s decision to file a grievance against her former employers, and that Treacy suggested as early as February that Whitney document everything going on at the firm. “The two of them discussed it on a very regular basis,” Kagan wrote, including before Whitney filed the grievance with the Washington State Bar Association in June.
Whitney’s Facebook profile indicates she’s moved to Las Vegas and has put up her Mill Creek home for sale. According to her attorney, she and Treacy haven’t talked since June.
Zachariah Bryan: 425-339-3431; zbryan@heraldnet.com. Twitter: @zachariahtb.
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