Mo. gov. raises ethics concnerns about secret taping

JEFFFERSON CITY, Mo. (AP) -- Gov. Matt Blunt's office claims that a former staff attorney violated his ethical duties by secretly recording a conversation during which he was fired.

Scott Eckersley, who is suing Blunt for wrongful firing and defamation, recorded a conversation last September during which he was fired by Blunt's then-chief of staff, Ed Martin.

Eckersley claims he was fired after raising concerns that the governor's office may have violated open-records requirements by deleting some e-mails. Blunt's office has said Eckersley was fired for a variety of other reasons, including doing private work at his state office.

Blunt's legal counsel now claims that secret recording violated a Supreme Court guideline for attorney conduct, according to documents obtained Thursday from the governor's office under a Sunshine Law request by The Associated Press.

Blunt's general counsel, Lowell Pearson, sent a letter May 2 to Eckersley's attorneys saying he had just learned that Eckersley may have secretly recorded the September conversation with Martin and Blunt's then-deputy chief of staff, Chuck Pryor. The governor's office said Thursday that it learned of the recording from a reporter for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, who was working on a story about it.

"If this proves true, the Office of the Governor would be very disappointed to learn that Mr. Eckersley has yet again violated his ethical duties," Pearson wrote.

"If Mr. Eckersley secretly taped the conversation, I also am concerned that the ethical issue not be compounded by disclosure of it to third parties," Pearson added. "That plainly would violate Mr. Eckersley's duty to confidentiality to this office, which was his client."

By that point, the Post-Dispatch had already listened to the recording, which was made public when the newspaper published an excerpt from it May 8.

Eckersley's attorney, Jeff Bauer, so far has declined to release additional copies of the recording, citing an implication from the governor's office that it could take additional action against Eckersley's law license.

Blunt's administration already filed a complaint against Eckersley last fall.

In a May 6 letter responding to Blunt's office, Bauer said the governor's office had raised the same claims about the recording when filing its original complaint with the Supreme Court's Office of the Chief Disciplinary Counsel.

The governor's office hinges its ethical concerns on the assertion that it was Eckersley's legal client.

Bauer contends that Martin and Pryor were not Eckersley's clients, but rather co-workers.

Under attorney conduct guidelines, there is nothing improper about tape recording two co-workers, Bauer wrote back to the governor's office.

But even if Martin and Pryor were clients of Eckersley's, Bauer added, they would have been former clients and thus the ethical restriction on secretly recording conversations would not have applied. The conversation in which Martin verbally fired Eckersley occurred on Sept. 28. Bauer points to a letter dated Sept. 26 from Martin to Eckersley informing him of the firing.