Another Crook, This Time a Lawyer.
Of all the crooks I came across in my career, more than a few were lawyers. Charles E. Polk, Jr. was a politically connected African American lawyer who claimed friendship with John Ashcroft and pull with top Republican officials all the way up to Vice President Dick Cheney and even President George W. Bush. Polk helped to diversify the St. Louis metro area by broadening the racial makeup of local white collar crooks, which had previously been predominantly white.
After working in Jefferson City for state government, Polk joined the St. Louis law firm of Peper, Martin, Jensen, Maichel and Hetlage (now Blackwell Sanders Peper Martin), which was eager to have a Black lawyer.
Polk had helped Missouri Gov. John D. Ashcroft get confirmed as U.S. Attorney General when questions surfaced about Ashcroft’s record on civil rights and race. Polk took to national television, appearing with NBC’s Bryant Gumbel and then-CNN host Greta Van Susteren, and spiritedly defended his friend.
Four years later, another St. Louis firm, Husch & Eppenberger, was delighted to hire him.
Polk gained respect in the wider St. Louis community. The Herbert Hoover Boys & Girls Club and Allegiant Bank (remember its president Shaun Hayes, the proud felon?) invited him onto their boards. He also was accepted into Leadership St. Louis, a prestigious training program in civic engagement for promising well-placed professionals. Polk had taken calculated advantage of a “market” created by the scarcity of Black Republicans.
But at the same time, Polk was being sued for failing to pay small, routine bills. The St. Louis Court docket shows over a dozen suits for modest amounts.
It was Polk’s use of Husch’s money that got him into hot water for the first time. In January 1998 he deposited – to his own account, instead of turning it over to the firm – a $10,203 cashier’s check for legal work he had done for Faith United Church of the Living God. When law firm asked the church for payment on an invoice, the pastor said they had already paid Polk. Polk left Husch a month later.
Once again Polk landed on his feet – this time at Stinson, Mag & Fizzell (now Stinson Morrison Hecker), a large Kansas City-based firm with a sizeable office in St. Louis. Polk's tenure there was his shortest yet, less than two years, and it proved a disaster for him. Polk had brought a client to the firm, Game Face International, a minority-owned startup manufacturer of sports apparel. While he supposedly was securing financing for Game Face, the client went bust. Game Face blamed Polk for dragging his feet, exaggerating his expertise in venture capital and personally extorting $25,000. Game Face brought a $15 million legal malpractice suit against Polk, and settled out of court. He “left” the Stinson firm
All this time, Polk hadn't been filing income tax returns or paying taxes. By the end of 2002, the feds were on his tail. Polk had cycled quickly through two more law firms, managing a St. Louis office for Pittsburgh’s Doepken Keevican & Weiss, and then going to work for Kansas City-based Lathrop & Gage, which immediately made him vice chairman.
It was while at Lathrop & Gage that Polk hatched a new plan for his career: He would secure for victims and relatives of the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing the same kind of federal compensation that the U.S. government was paying 9/11 victims and their families. Polk went into partnership with James Helenthal, publisher of a “shopper” newspaper in Quincy, IL, promising him 45 percent of future legal fees. But first Polk insisted that Helenthal write two checks as down payments, one for $250,000 to him and another for $132,000 to his wife, Cheryl Polk, who was an executive with United Way of Greater St. Louis.
Polk urged Helenthal, his new mark, to rent BMWs for him and make big political contributions, and invited him to Washington to advance their case with officials at the Justice Department and Federal Trade Commission, influential congressmen and senators, and Vice President Dick Cheney. In the end, the scheme came to naught and Helenthal sued, claiming that Polk had fleeced him. Helenthal then sued Lathrop, even though Polk had never opened a file there and essentially had done work for Helenthal on the side.
To Lathrop’s credit, it’s managing partner told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch:
“We had a client who entered into a secret, kind of get rich quick scheme with one of our lawyers that we didn’t know anything
about and that he knew was illegal and he has the gall to sue us “
That case was dismissed.
Polk finally was indicted for all of the above, plus more shenanigans that are too lenthy to describe here. He pleaded guilty to two counts and was sentenced to 46 months in Club Fed. When he got out in 2012, he started another scheme: He became a consultant to white collar criminals on their way to Club Fed on how to get the prison jobs and into the best clubs.
I believe Polk relocated to the St. Louis area, but it's not clear what he is doing now.