Stern hires new high-profile defense attorney

by David L. Lazar - Published in: The Franklin Press
Wednesday July 11, 2001

Last year, Peter Stern's criminal defense attorney forced a mistrial when the attorney himself broke down into loud sobbing fits in federal court.

Stern, who was eventually convicted on federal bank and mail fraud charges, later fired Gerald Aurillo and chose to represent himself.

But with a sentencing hearing around the corner, and Stern looking at a possible 40-plus years in prison, a new high-profile attorney has agreed to take the former Macon County resident's case.

And prominent Washington area lawyer John Zwerling insist he won't be breaking down in court.

"I'm trying to get this treated like an ordinary case, because that's what it is," Zwerling said in an interview this week from his Alexandria, Virginia office. "I just want him to be treated fairly and to have the court focus on the right issues."

The right issues, says Zwerling, are the facts surrounding Stern's case.

Stern was convicted last summer of passing fake checks he'd gotten from a Montana-based group anti-government group to pay off debts he owed to government and lending agencies. A jury also convicted Stern of threatening to kidnap two judges by signing letters indicating they'd be "arrested" by "marshals" of his Franklin-based common-law court if they didn't free another activist who was in prison.

Zwerling says the evidence behind the charges should at least be called into question. He also says too much attention has been paid so far to the spectacle surrounding the case rather than to the case itself.

"I certainly don't feel he's gotten a fair shake in the press," Zwerling said. "There's been a little hysteria, and I think, guilt by association ... with the people in Montana."

Zwerling says he hopes to change that.

He declined this week to go into details of Stern's case, saying only that he was reviewing a pre-sentencing report prepared by the court and transcripts from Stern's trial last summer.

Zwerling also declined to disclose whether he was being paid by Stern or was working on the case for free.

If Zwerling's public profile during the last decade is any indication, his legal gees likely won't be cheap.

A frequent quest and legal expert on network news programs, Zwerling has gained fame during the last few years defending high profile clients, including Lorena Bobbitt in 1992.

Bobbitt was charged with cutting off her husband John Bobbitt's penis after discovering he had been having an extramarital affair. The bizarre case made national headlines, and Lorena Bobbitt was eventually acquitted.

Zwerling also serves on the board of directors of the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers.

The Internet's largest database of attorneys, Martindale-Hubbell, gives the attorney its highest rating, saying he possesses "very high to preeminent legal ability and very high ethical standards."

If Zwerling is charging his regular rate, Stern may have a tough time paying.

In their case against him last year, prosecutors had stated that Stern owed more than $96,000 in back taxes and had often written out false checks to banks and the IRS for hundreds of thousands of dollars more than he owed in hopes of getting refunds.

Stern, who testified he'd been issued the blank checks while attending a 1995 seminar put on by the Freeman organization in Montana, said he never knew they were worthless.

He also contended that the letters the two judges received were authored and mailed by another activist and that there was never an intent to kidnap or harm them.

Those are issues Zwerling says he'd like to work on when he comes to Asheville later this summer to represent Stern. The sentencing phase of Stern's case isn't expected to appear on the court calendar until at least the middle of August.

Unlike Aurillo, who had ties to groups like Stern's that questioned the legitimacy of state and federal laws, Zwerling says he took Stern's case simply because he felt Stern needed help.

He says he has no political stake in it.

The Washington-area attorney, in fact, has connections to a number of more causes that some consider progressive, including being a member of a national committee dedicated to legalizing marijuana.

"I'm not doing this for the cause," Zwerling said. "I'm doing it because he needs adequate representation in the context of his criminal case.

Stern will apparently have more than adequate representation.

Zwerling has enlisted the help of Asheville-based attorney Sean Devereux. Devereux was the defense attorney last summer in the case of Chris Lippard, who was convicted of murdering a Waynesville family. He's also representing Robbie Hess, a Jackson County deputy implicated in that county's recent sex scandal at Blue Ridge School.

This week, Devereux said he hoped he and Zwerling woudl have more success than Stern had had defending himself following Aurillo's firing.

"The federal sentencing guidelines are very complex, which can make it pretty tricky for defense lawyers," Devereux said last week. "I'm glad to be able to work with an attorney of John Zwerling's stature on this, and hope we can piece through these things."