Judge Slams Federal Prosecutors in Grace Trial
April 28, 2009 by admin
Filed under Asbestos & Mesothelioma
From the ABA Journal:
A federal judge chastised prosecutors yesterday in a hearing on misconduct allegations in the two-month trial of W.R. Grace and five of its former executives. The company is accused of exposing residents of a Montana mining town to asbestos, resulting in hundreds of deaths from mesothelioma.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Kris McLean bore the brunt of the judge’s wrath in the hearing yesterday, the New York Times reports.
U.S. District Judge Donald Molloy of Missoula said he couldn’t believe that prosecutors put fired Grace employee Robert Locke, a star witness, on the stand, according to Bloomberg News. “The guy will say anything, any time, any place, as long as he think’s it’s what somebody wants to hear,” Molloy said.
When prosecutors protested Molloy’s assertion, the judge replied: “We have a disagreement about that. Probably hell would freeze over before we would come to any kind of agreement.”
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