Reported Legal Misconduct Of Attorney Robert Flaherty In Rhode Island Courts

Attorney Robert Flaherty Caught Manipulating The System

Complaint One    On 2-13-2001, the Providence Journal reported that Judge Patricia Hurst In her 54-page ruling was harshly critical of commission chairman Robert Flaherty, a lawyer and a state legislator whose actions she described as "inexcusable" in the hearings regarding the firing of lottery chairman John Hawkins.

"The court finds that Flaherty deliberately withheld information from [the commission's secretary] so as to shroud the real purpose of the meeting." He instructed the commission's secretary to word the public notice in a certain way, Hurst said, which "amounted to a contrivance designed to minimize the risk that there would be opposition to the motion to terminate Hawkins and to avoid a public discussion of the merits of Hawkins's termination."