U.S. Supreme Court won’t review Platte County Prosecutor’s reprimand in ethics case

The United States Supreme Court on Monday denied a request from Platte County Prosecutor Eric Zahnd to review his reprimand by the Missouri Supreme Court for violating rules of professional conduct.

Zahnd and his office were accused of intimidating and threatening supporters of a Dearborn man after he pleaded guilty in 2015 to repeatedly sexually abusing a child for at least a decade.

In May, the Missouri Supreme Court decided to reprimand Zahnd rather than suspend his law license. The reprimand did not affect Zahnd’s ability to practice law or his ability to serve as prosecutor.

However, Zahnd wanted the Supreme Court to review whether the reprimand was warranted.

“It’s always a longshot to obtain United States Supreme Court review of a case,” Zahnd said. “The Court accepts only about one of every 100 cases it is asked to hear. The Court often declines multiple cases raising an important issue before later granting review of a case to decide that same issue.”

“The Missouri Press Association, the Missouri Association of Prosecuting Attorneys, and I asked the court to hear the case because we believe it raises the vital issue of whether an elected prosecutor can tell the truth in a news release about public information regarding a court case once that case is over,” he said. “I did those things in support a victim of child sexual abuse.”

Defense attorney John P. O’Connor filed ethics complaints against Zahnd and Assistant Prosecutor Christopher Seufert in 2016, saying they tried to intimidate several people who wrote letters seeking leniency for Darren L. Paden.

At the time, Paden was to be sentenced for abusing a girl at least 200 to 300 times over a decade, starting before she turned 5 years old.

O’Connor’s complaints were filed with the Missouri Office of Chief Disciplinary Counsel.

A disciplinary hearing was held in November before a three-member panel. O’Connor accused Zahnd and Seufert of threatening to publish the supporters’ names in local newspapers as supporters of a pedophile if they did not withdraw their letters of support for Paden.

Friends and relatives had written letters praising Paden as a former chief of a volunteer fire department and a father of seven, well-liked in the small Platte County farming community.

Despite the letters, Paden was sentenced in 2015 to 50 years in prison.

In December 2017, the panel found that Zahnd violated some rules of professional responsibility and recommended he be reprimanded.

Several organizations, including the Missouri Association of Prosecuting Attorneys and the Missouri Press Association, filed briefs on behalf of Zahnd, opposing the reprimand.

In August, Zahnd won re-election as Platte County Prosecutor.