Two assistants U.S. Attorneys die mysteriously 7 weeks apart, and three more - big time prosecutors - all up and leave a month later. Two say they're going to the private sector, one says he's retiring. The two end up having a future intersection of sorts at a prominent Dallas defense firm, and the third isn't retired at all - he works at that same firm to this day!
Let's back up.
In the summer of 2004 two higher-up employees at the U.S. Attorney's office for the Northern District of Texas (offices in Ft. Worth and Dallas), the head of the Affirmative Civil Enforcement Unit, Thelma Quince Colbert, and Criminal Chief Shannon K. Ross, died less than two months apart, on July 20 and September 11 respectively. Colbert, 55, was found dead in her swimming pool. Ross, 44, died (the previous link says) as a result of a fall in her home.
Coincidences happen and people do of course die. There are head-scratching oddnesses to these stories (it's nearly impossible to find any info on the deaths - and they were in a U.S. Attorney's office), but we'll get into that another time. What would soon happen in that particular USAtty's office got stranger.
Just a month later, in October of 2004, the same office lost three of its most prominent employees in one fell swoop. (Wait: less than a month later. And still earlier.):
Three of the region's most experienced and skilled federal prosecutors recently left government service, creating a void at the U.S. attorney's office in Dallas, officials said. Two veteran prosecutors – Michael Uhl and Michael Snipes – are switching to potentially more lucrative jobs as white-collar defense attorneys. The third, Leonard Senerote, is retiring. The three, who have decades of combined experience on complex cases, are the last winners of the Greater Dallas Crime Commission's award for federal prosecutor of the year.
Michael Uhl, Michael Reuss Snipes, and Leonard Senerote. Remember those names.
Later in the article it says:
Mr. Snipes said he plans to work from the office of Jim Rolfe, a former U.S. attorney turned defense lawyer.
Mr. Uhl ... joins a newly expanded firm, Fitzpatrick Hagood Smith & Uhl.
Snipes went to work for Jim Rolfe and Uhl to Fitzpatrick Hagood Smith & Uhl. And in February, 2006, Jim Rolfe went to work for...Fitzpatrick Hagood Smith & Uhl. Did Snipes go with him? I don't know. And hey, coincidences happen, so it could be nothing. And anyway, Snipes is a State District Judge as of January, 2007. (A Democrat.)
But wait there's more!
Go back to the list of three names that quit the Ft. Worth U.S. Attorney's office one day in October, 2004, just months after two other names mysteriously died. It says the third, Leonard Senerote, is "retiring." Really? Then why is his name still listed as a partner at - wait for it - Fitzpatrick Hagood Smith & Uhl?
So, we've got five big players gone from one U.S. Attorney's office in a three month period. Two die mysteriously and two go to the same prominent law firm. Another goes to work for a lawyer who becomes a partner at that same law firm.
And this isn't - or wasn't - news?
For more on this, here's some background with links to more. And: Thelma Quince colbert was the lead AUSAtty charge of Medicare fraud, for what it's worth.
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