SC assistant solicitor was disbarred, fired after lying to former private practice clients
An assistant solicitor with the 14th Circuit Solicitor’s Office was fired after being disbarred by the S.C. State Supreme Court for lying to clients from her private practice.
All five State Supreme Court justices voted to disbar Kimberly Smith on Wednesday after an investigation revealed she had lied to clients for years when she worked as a personal injury attorney in Beaufort County.
Smith was hired by 14th Circuit Solicitor Duffie Stone in January 2017 to work for the high-profile Career Criminal Unit. She prosecuted major cases in Beaufort County, such as the Bluffton couple who killed a local restaurant owner in 2015.
Stone told the Island Packet she was fired on Wednesday after he learned of the disbarment.
“She was a talented lawyer and a very good trial lawyer,” Stone said. “I don’t know what happened at her civil law firm. It didn’t happen at the Solicitor’s Office, and we have enough checks and balances to catch it if it had.”
He said his office is reviewing all cases that Smith prosecuted, in the event that criminal defense attorneys try to revive old case convictions and cite her disbarment.
On Thursday and Friday, a reporter left two voicemails for Smith, who did not respond.
Years of misleading communications
An investigation by the S.C. Office of Disciplinary Counsel, a public agency that oversees complaints against judges and lawyers, found four separate instances of Smith repeatedly lying to clients about the details of their cases and about the work she was doing for them.
In one case, a woman from Syracuse, New York, sought representation from Smith for a personal injury lawsuit in August 2009.
The resident was visiting Sea Pines Resort when a tree fell on her car, injuring her. She signed an agreement with Smith to sue, and the two communicated over phone and email.
Smith, an attorney with Moss, Kuhn & Fleming in Beaufort, filed a lawsuit against the resort in 2012.
Over a year later, after back and forth between both sides’ lawyers, a judge dismissed the personal injury case.
Smith “did not send the order to, call, email, or contact (the Syracuse woman) in any way to inform her about the decision,” reads the investigation.
When the Syracuse woman asked Smith about an update on her case, Smith said the case was moving forward and that she should be ready for trial in November 2014.
When November rolled around, Smith told the woman there “were problems setting a trial date and did not tell (her) the case had been dismissed a year earlier.”
The rest of the investigation shows a series of lies to the client:
- At the end of 2014, the woman sent five emails asking for an update. Smith said she was in discussions with the judge about her case and in the midst of a double murder trial, but promised to be in touch soon.
- The Syracuse woman was told she would be testifying via Skype in her trial in May 2015.
- After weeks of repeated emails and calls, Smith eventually emailed her on the “trial date” to tell her she would call when the trial was over. Then, Smith texted the woman to say the trial was being continued into the following week.
- That next week, Smith told her the trial went well and that they were awaiting a verdict.
From June 2015 until May 2016, Smith offered dozens of excuses to reschedule calls or explain why the judge’s decision had been postponed, according to the investigation. By then, she told the Syracuse woman she should expect a settlement of more than $360,000 after the judge finalized things.
Dozens more excuses and missed calls ensued.
In August 2016, the woman finally circumvented Smith and sent a letter to a partner at her firm, Fred Kuhn, asking for the case to be reassigned.
Kuhn called to inform her that her case had actually been dismissed in October 2013.
“She violated the trust not only her clients had in her, but also we had in her,” said Kuhn, in an interview with the Island Packet.
Kuhn said she was fired from the law firm after the discovery. He said he reported Smith to the Office of Disciplinary Counsel.
Fired lawyer to senior prosecutor
Less than six months after being fired from Moss, Kuhn & Fleming, 14th Circuit Solicitor Duffie Stone hired Smith.
Stone said that he knew Smith before her days working as a personal injury attorney. Out of law school, she clerked for Judge Perry Buckner and then worked for the Solicitor’s Office when Stone was the deputy solicitor.
“When she left private practice, I brought her back in and put her on the career criminal team,” said Stone.
As an assistant solicitor, she prosecuted and was involved in many important cases.
Smith played a key role collecting evidence in the case against Wayland Brown, a Catholic priest in Savannah who was sentenced to 20 years in prison for sexually assaulting teenage boys in Jasper County in the 1970s, according to the 14th Circuit Solicitor’s Office’s 2019 annual report.
“Smith pored over hundreds of pages of depositions from the civil trial. She drove all over Jasper County with the two former St. James students participating in the criminal case, combing the countryside and their memories for the places Brown had assaulted them so many years ago,” the report said.
In the case of the 2015 murder of a Bluffton restaurateur, Smith called 16 witnesses in the trial that secured a 50-year prison sentence for Samuel Collins.
Smith co-prosecuted the case against Tyrone Wallace Jr., of St. Helena, who killed a Beaufort man and burned his remains in 2018.
Stone said he doesn’t anticipate any problems with Smith’s old convictions.
The team structure of their prosecution unit ensures somebody is always looking over the other person’s shoulder and checking their work.
“You’re not in a position like you are in some law firms where you’re by yourself. We’re taking a look now to make sure there weren’t any cases in that situation,” said Stone.
An audit of Smith’s cases is warranted, according to Dayne Phillips, a criminal defense attorney in Columbia for Price Benowitz LLP.
Phillips said defense lawyers who had a case that Smith prosecuted or is pending with the Solicitor’s Office that she worked on have a duty “to make sure no evidence was missing.”
“In this set of circumstances, you have a prosecutor (who could) be called into question,” said Phillips. “I would hope that the files were reviewed to ensure everything was administered properly.”
