Anchorage Daily News

A special public defender hired by the government to represent Joshua Wade on federal fraud charges is a Seattle lawyer whose clients have included the Hells Angels, a nightclub owner once involved in shady dealings at Anchorage strip clubs, and an inmate he saved from death row.

It's only the third time in 11 years the feds here have gone Outside to find someone a lawyer.

With a victory in front of the U.S. Supreme Court to his credit and a Web site that portrays him as a defender of First Amendment and prisoners' rights, why would Gilbert Levy take a case involving an allegedly stolen ATM card in a faraway state he's not licensed to practice in?

"I like Alaska," is all he would say.

Enough to aspire to working here more often? Enough to maybe open an office here someday?

"I just aspire to go fishing," he said.

Levy, who will earn the regulation $100 an hour, got the call to defend Wade when Alaska's list of 43 private attorneys willing to work as federal public defenders yielded no candidates, federal defender Rich Curtner said.

"This is a pretty complex case," Curtner said. "Most of our (approved private lawyers) are sole practitioners, and it's difficult for them to take a time-consuming case."

Curtner's office needed to find a private attorney because conflicts eliminated his staff lawyers.

Federal defender Mary Geddes cited an unspecified conflict when she stepped down from the case earlier this month, and conflicts ruled out other federal defenders too, Curtner told the U.S. District Court when he asked that a lawyer outside the Alaska district be appointed.

"The problem is, there have been a lot of people who have been tangentially involved in the Wade case," said Rex Butler, a private defense attorney in Anchorage.

All it would take to create a conflict for Wade's attorney in the middle of the case is for another client to tell him, "I've got information on the Wade guy," Butler said.

"So it's probably prudent with such a high-profile case to bring in someone who you're 95 percent certain has no conflict," he said. "I think (Curtner) made a smart move."

On the surface, the case is a simple charge of bank fraud, of someone using someone else's ATM card without permission. But it's a case with as much subtext as a densely written novel, and that complicates things.

Wade, 27, was acquitted of murder five years ago in a highly publicized trial and he has been called a "person of interest" in last year's slaying of Mindy Schloss, an Anchorage nurse who was his neighbor.

He's also charged with having marijuana in jail and being a felon in possession of a gun.

Wade's DNA was found in Schloss' car, and a receipt from her ATM card was found in his coat pocket, but he isn't charged in Schloss' death. That investigation is continuing, with no new developments to report, a police spokeswoman said Monday.

Levy thinks the homicide, not the ATM card, is why he was offered the case.

"This is speculation on my part," he said, "but I have homicide experience. Although the federal charges do not involve homicide, there are issues."

Levy's last homicide case involved defending members of the Hells Angels motorcycle club on violent crime and racketeering charges, including murder and a near-fatal beating. The outcome: a hung jury, although some have since been convicted.

In other high-profile cases, Levy helped get a new trial for a death-row inmate after arguing to the U.S. Supreme Court that the judge in the case, later convicted of taking bribes, was so corrupt that his mere presence in the trial made it unfair.

His clients have included Frank Colacurcio Jr., owner of several Seattle strip clubs. Along with his father, Frank Sr., Colacurcio pleaded guilty in 1991 to federal tax violations for skimming money at two once-notorious Anchorage topless clubs, The Wild Cherry and Good Times.

Levy, who is licensed to practice in Washington and Arizona, said he's never tried a case in Alaska. He is authorized to practice in federal court here.

He is a member of Washington state's CJA panel -- a group of lawyers who are eligible to take federal cases in the event no federal defenders are available.

Anchorage attorney Cindy Strout, who help persuade a jury to acquit Wade of murder in 2003, said there were many witnesses in that case, and they all had lawyers, who would be ruled out as candidates for the new case.

According to the federal defender's office, out-of-state defense attorneys have been assigned to only two other Alaska cases in the last 11 years -- a defendant in a massive 2002 cocaine case, and Thomas Ranes, who is facing a murder trial this spring in connection with the 2005 slaying of Tom Cody.

Find Beth Bragg online at adn.com/contact/bbragg or call 257-4309.

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