By Tom Jackman
In response to an inquiry from
Sen. Charles Grassley (R-Iowa) about the August 2013 slaying of John B. Geer by
Fairfax County police, the Fairfax Board of Supervisors has hired a Washington
lawyer who previously counseled baseball slugger Mark McGwire to evade
Congressional questions about steroid use.
Fairfax police and prosecutors
and federal prosecutors in Alexandria have all refused to say who shot an
unarmed Geer in the doorway of his Springfield home or why, and no ruling has
been made on whether the shooting was justifiable after nearly 15 months. On
Nov. 13, Grassley sent a three-page letter to both Fairfax police Chief Edwin
C. Roessler Jr. and U.S. Attorney Dana J. Boente with five questions about the
case and when it might be resolved. The case was referred to federal
prosecutors after five months by Fairfax Commonwealth’s Attorney Raymond F.
Morrogh.
Fairfax County moved quickly
and hired Mark B. Bierbower of Hunton & Williams, a Richmond-based firm
frequently used by Fairfax as outside counsel in various legal matters.
Bierbower contacted Grassley’s office on Nov. 17 and told them he was
representing the county, according to both officials in Grassley’s office and
Michael Lieberman, the lawyer for Geer’s family. The family filed a civil suit
against Fairfax police in September after a year without any answers in the
case.
Fairfax County spokesman Tony
Castrilli said he could not comment on, or even confirm, the hiring of
Bierbower, or say how much county taxpayers would be paying Bierbower. Fairfax
Chairman Sharon Bulova did not return a message seeking comment.
In a photo taken by a neighbor just minutes
before the shooting, John B. Geer stands in the doorway of his Springfield
townhouse with his hands on the top of his storm door, with two officers aiming
their service weapons at him. Soon after, one of the officers fired one shot,
and Geer died. Almost 15 months later, no ruling has been made on the legality
of the shooting. (Courtesy DiMuro Ginsberg)
Lieberman said Bierbower’s
hiring “strikes me as an awful waste of funds in this case just to keep
information from becoming known to the public, about what happened. If they’re
hiring counsel to answer those five questions, I’m sure they’re not doing it to
provide that information.”
Although Fairfax has its own
county legal department, headed by county attorney David Bobzien, Bobzien has
been involved in advising the Fairfax police on how to respond to investigative
inquiries from county and federal prosecutors, several people familiar with the
case said, and also must oversee the county’s response to the Geer family’s
civil suit. Lawyers said either situation may have caused Bobzien to feel he
had a conflict of interest in responding to Grassley.
Several people close to the
Fairfax board said the supervisors are taking Grassley’s inquiry into the
unsolved police shooting very seriously, and Bierbower lists two of his
specialties as “Congressional oversight and investigations” on his web page. He
is a former president of the Bar Association of D.C., as was his father, and
the two partnered to represent Environmental Protection Agency assistant
administrator Rita Lavelle as she came under intense congressional scrutiny in
the 1980s. Lavelle was later prosecuted and convicted of lying to Congress.
In March 2005, Fairfax
Congressman Tom Davis (R) convened a hearing into steroid use in baseball.
McGwire, who had set the single season home run record in 1998, hired Bierbower
and later said he wanted to testify truthfully about his steroid use during his
playing days. But he was not granted immunity from criminal prosecution, Davis
and Bierbower later said, and so he tried to answer questions without lying.
“My lawyers have advised me
that I cannot answer these questions without jeopardizing my friends, my
family, or myself,” McGwire said in his opening statement. In response to
pointed questions, McGwire often said, “I’m not here to talk about the past…I’m
here to be positive about this subject.” His testimony was not well received
publicly, and he has not been admitted to the baseball Hall of Fame.
In 2010, McGwire admitted he
had used steroids while playing. Bierbower then told American Lawyer Daily that
“I think [Mark] deserves credit for being honest and open, and obviously the
situation is different today than it was five years ago…He wanted to tell the
truth then, which was quite a risk at the time. He was aware that he could be
prosecuted and that his family and friends could be the subject of criminal
investigations. And now he felt it was time to get this off his chest and tell
the truth.”
Grassley’s office said neither
the Justice Department nor Fairfax County police had yet provided any answers
to the senator’s questions.