An Open Letter to Richard L. Wyatt, Jr., Esq. (Hunton & Williams) -- Is Richard L. Wyatt Concealing Knowledge of a Felony?

Richard L. Wyatt, Jr., Esq.
Hunton & Williams
Washington, DC

Mr. Wyatt:

I strongly urge you to speak to the Washington Field Office of the Federal Bureau of Investigation concerning the following matters. If you have any information that could help the Bureau investigate the criminal conduct of the law firm of Akin, Gump, Strauss, Hauer & Feld, see Freedman v. D.C. Department of Human Rights, D.C.C.A. no. 96-CV-961 (Sept. 1, 1998), you have a legal duty and an ethical duty as a lawyer to disclose that information to federal law enforcement. You practiced law at Akin Gump during my tenure at the firm (1988 to 1991) and for some years thereafter. Your failure to disclose evidence of crimes could jeopardize your license to practice law.

The D.C. Office of Corporation Counsel (acting through Charles F.C. Ruff, Esq., Jo Anne Robinson, Esq., Charles L. Reischel, Esq., William J. Earl, Esq. and M. Justin Draycott, Esq.) took the position before the D.C. Superior Court in 1996 and again before the D.C. Court of Appeals in 1997 that my belief that Akin Gump's managers (a class of persons that included Vernon E. Jordan, Jr., Esq., Robert S. Strauss, Esq., Malcolm Lassman, Esq., Laurence J. Hoffman, Esq., Joel Jankowsky, Esq. and Richard L. Wyatt, Jr., Esq.) engaged in, or approved the commission of, criminal acts, specifically, approving the break-in of my residence in January 1990 and conspiring to solicit confidential mental health information from my treating psychiatrists in violation of the D.C. Mental Health Information Act of 1978 (from 1989 through 1991) -- acts that in their entirety might constitute the crime of racketeering under federal law -- was genuine. Brief of Appellee District of Columbia, Freedman v. D.C. Dept. Human Rights, D.C.C.A. no. 96-CV-961 (Sept. 1, 1998). Neither Strauss, Jordan, Wyatt, Jankowsky, Race, Lassman, managing partner Hoffman nor any Akin Gump manager disputed the D.C. Corporation Counsel's position or questioned its legal or factual relevance.

The D.C. Court of Appeals determined that a Clinical Professor of Psychiatry (Gertrude R. Ticho, M.D., now deceased) at GW offered a professional psychiatric opinion about me to Malcolm Lassman, Esq. and Dennis M. Race, Esq. in late October 1991. The U.S. Social Security Administration relied in 1993 on Mr. Race's sworn declaration about that psychiatric opinion to grant a fraudulent claim of disability insurance. Dr. Ticho's act of providing a professional psychiatric opinion about an (unnamed) individual without benefit of personal examination was a violation of the American Psychiatric Association's Code of Professional Ethics. See Goldwater v. Ginzburg, 396 U.S. 1049 (1970) (the APA's so-called Goldwater Rule prohibits a psychiatrist from offering a professional psychiatric opinion without benefit of personal examination). Information obtained by Akin Gump via Dr. Ticho's violation of the Goldwater Rule was used by Akin Gump's attorney managers to defraud the D.C. Department of Human Rights (1992 and 1993), the D.C. Superior Court (1996), the D.C. Court of Appeals (1997), the D.C. Corporation Counsel (1996 and 1997), and the U.S. Social Security Administration (1993).

You were a member of Akin Gump's management committee during my employment, which also included as a member Malcolm Lassman, Esq.  In a sworn declaration dated May 22, 1992, Dennis Race advised the D.C. Department of Human Rights that his decision to terminate my employment on October 29, 1991 was made in consultation with Akin Gump's management committee:  "After deliberating with Claimant's supervisor and other members of Respondent’s Management Committee, the decision was made to terminate Claimant."

You (as well as Jack Gallagher, Esq. and David P. Callet, Esq.) were a senior attorney for the client Eastern Airlines, the major client to which I was assigned from 1988-1990; you may have first-hand information about my employment at Akin Gump and possibly the circumstances surrounding my job termination by Mr. Race on October 29, 1991.

Gary Freedman
Washington, DC