Superior Court Judge orders prosecutor Greg Newman removed from office
The historic ruling found that he had lied to a judge and the North Carolina Bar Association
By Dan DeWitt
Brevard NewsBeat
A Superior Court judge has taken the historic step of ordering District Attorney Greg Newman’s immediate removal from office, finding “willful misconduct” and actions “prejudicial to the administration of justice.”
Superior Court Judge Robert C. Ervin issued the order Tuesday, based on evidence presented during a three-day hearing earlier this month. Newman, who was originally appointed to the office in 2013 and has been reelected twice since then, served as the top prosecutor for Henderson, Polk and Transylvania counties.
According to the Asheville Citizen-Times, which has covered the removal proceedings extensively, this is only the third ruling of its kind in state history.
The hearing included testimony that Newman had failed to adequately represent victims, including a woman who said the prosecutor — despite clear evidence — declined to bring charges against two men who she said had raped her while she was a student at Brevard College.
Ervin’s ruling focused on other matters, including the case against James Sapp, who in 2015 was indicted by a Hendersonville grand jury on felony charges including rape of child by an adult.
Newman later agreed to accept a deal that allowed Sapp to plea to a misdemeanor and did not require him to register as a sex offender.
Evidence presented to the North Carolina Bar Association showed Newman had failed to notify the victim and lied to the judge, saying that the victim did not want to testify when she did, in fact, want to be heard, Erwin wrote.
The judge “would not have accepted that plea on that date if she had been advised that the victim wanted to be heard,” Ervin wrote, citing the judge’s own testimony.
“Newman made a knowing misrepresentation of facts to” the judge, Ervin wrote.
Ervin also found that Newman had lied to the Bar after the victim’s father filed a grievance in 2017 about the prosecutor’s handling of the case.
The grievance ultimately resulted in a stayed three-year suspension of Newman’s license that allowed him to continue to practice.
Newman stated, in a written response to the grievance, a staffer had prepared a “bill of information,” and presented it to the victim’s mother and that Newman had talked to the victim’s father on the day of the plea agreement — neither of which turned out to be true, according to statements cited in the judge’s ruling.
“Newman violated (rules of professional conduct) by making false statements to the State Bar,” Ervin wrote, and concluded that “in connection with the Sapp case, Newman committed three separate acts, each of which constitutes an independent ground for removal from the office of district attorney.”
Ervin also cited evidence that Newman had lied to the Bar after being accused of a conflict of interest that originated with his actions as a private attorney, representing a client, identified as “C.B.,” who faced drug charges.
Newman told a judge in that 2006 case that his client had agreed to enter a plea in the case, but a motion filed a decade later by another lawyer said otherwise, Ervin wrote.
Newman consented to the motion while in office and dismissed the charges against C.B., actions that resulted in the conflict-of-interest complaint.
In his response to the letter informing him of the grievance, Newman said he didn’t know he had been C.B.’s lawyer. But Ervin cited court documents in which Newman acknowledged he had served in that capacity.
This misrepresentation, he wrote, “constitutes an additional and independent ground for removal.”
Newman did not return a call to his office seeking comment. A post on the Mountain Justice Facebook page, which helped organize the push for Newman’s removal, praised the ruling.
“Finally, a Taste of Justice for us ALL!”