A former federal prosecutor and ex-shareholder at U.S. law firm Polsinelli who made incendiary comments about judges, prosecutors and Jewish people, has been suspended, opens new tab from practicing law for three years by the Illinois Supreme Court.
Read more:
George Jackson III made the remarks while independently representing his brother Anthony, who was on trial for murder. Jackson was held in criminal contempt four times by two Cook County judges, and was disqualified from representing his brother after accusing a judge of colluding with prosecutors.
The Illinois Supreme Court said this week that Jackson must apply for reinstatement after his three-year suspension ends.
Jackson told Reuters his comments were prompted by seeing a prominent Cook County prosecutor enter the chambers of the judge who was overseeing his brother's murder trial, suggesting improper influence.
"None of this would have happened" otherwise, Jackson said.
Jackson had alleged that the judge, then-Cook County Associate Judge James Linn, was colluding with prosecutors. An Illinois Attorney Registration and Disciplinary Commission hearing panel said in September that if Jackson legitimately believed any judge was dishonest or corrupt, he could have filed a complaint with Illinois' Judicial Inquiry Board.
A lawyer for Jackson, Lawrence Beaumont, declined to comment.
Compared Cook County sheriff's deputies to Nazis
Jackson also "demonstrated a pattern of hostility toward Jews" in court filings, an ARDC panel said. In one 2017 filing, he graphically described the abduction and rape of two fictional Jewish women and alleged Cook County State's Attorney Kimberly Foxx, a Black woman, was being controlled by a Jewish man, according to the panel.
He later compared Cook County sheriff's deputies to Nazis, the panel added.
In his comments to Reuters, Jackson called the ARDC panel's findings "absolute stupidity" and "wholly inaccurate."
Jackson was a federal prosecutor in Chicago for 16 years and a past president of the Federal Bar Association. According to his LinkedIn profile, he worked at Bryan Cave Leighton Paisner for three years and at Polsinelli as a shareholder for four years after departing the Chicago U.S. Attorney's Office.
He left Polsinelli in 2015 to represent his brother after he was charged with two counts of first-degree murder, the panel said.
Jackson was among a group of 11 lawyers the Illinois Supreme Court disciplined in orders released Wednesday.
One of them, Benjamin Herrington, agreed to disbarment after taking an ambulance and leading police on a 60-mile chase in April 2022. He pleaded guilty to criminal trespass to a motor vehicle and was sentenced to 24 months of conditional discharge and a time-served 180 days in jail, according to the ARDC.
Herrington did not immediately respond to a request for comment. According to his LinkedIn profile, Herrington previously worked at several different law firms in Chicago, including Proskauer Rose, DLA Piper, Clark Hill and Neal, Gerber & Eisenberg.