Two defense attorneys have been barred from meeting with clients at the D.C. jail after residue of illegal drugs was found on paperwork that the lawyers carried into the facility, according to two employees of the city’s Department of Corrections.
Washington, D.C
Two lawyers barred from D.C. jail over drug-tainted paperwork, officials say
McCants said he was told in October by a jail security employee that paperwork he was carrying had a stain on it that “looked wet.” McCants, in an interview, said that the stain was dry. He said he was then told that the paperwork contained residue that tested positive as synthetic marijuana.
McCants said a family member of one of his clients had given him the paperwork to pass along to the client. McCants said he should not have tried to deliver paperwork to the jail that did not originate with him. But he said he was distracted at the time by the death of a close friend.
“I made a mistake,” McCants said. “I may have been a little bit off. Dealing with grieving a friend’s death. I did nothing wrong. I built my integrity over a lifetime. My integrity stands in place.”
Defense lawyer Donna Beasley also confirmed that she has been banned from the jail, but declined to discuss the circumstance. Beasley said that she, like McCants, can meet with jailed clients via video and that her hired investigators can go into the jail to meet inmates in her absence.
The two Department of Corrections employees who said the lawyers were banned spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the ongoing investigation.
Inmates seeking illegal drugs can use the tainted paperwork in place of actual drugs. Roger Mitchell, a former D.C. medical examiner, said inmates could rip up the paperwork and either smoke it or place pieces of it under their tongues to get intoxicated. “That’s why all things coming into jail need to be looked at or tested,” he said.
The D.C. Superior Court Trial Lawyers Association has since reminded its 200 members that they should not bring materials into the jail unless the items originated with themselves, police or prosecutors.
Betty Ballester, a former head of the association, said a memo was distributed to members detailing what they can and cannot bring to clients. “We can bring in any kind of legal materials,” she said. “We are not allowed to bring in newspapers, books or personal items, such as pictures or letters from family members. Just legal documents.”
In a statement Thursday, Thomas Faust, the director of the Department of Corrections, declined to provide specifics of the investigation but praised his employees for identifying drug-tainted items brought into the jail.
“Our staff is trained and equipped with the necessary tools and techniques to detect and intercept contraband,” Faust said in a statement. “We employ a variety of strategies, including regular searches, advanced screening and detection technologies, and intelligence gathering, to ensure that contraband is identified and seized promptly.”
The office of D.C. Mayor Muriel E. Bowser (D) declined to comment on the two lawyers. After The Washington Post submitted a Freedom of Information Act request in October for details regarding the banning of the attorneys, Bowser’s Office of Legal Counsel denied an appeal in December, saying the details were “relevant to an ongoing investigation” and that releasing them “would impact the integrity of the investigation and any subsequent enforcement proceeding.”
Like many correctional facilities, the D.C. jail has grappled with how to stop prisoners from getting drugs. From 2021 to September, six inmates died of overdoses in the jail, according to the D.C. medical examiner’s office.
In 2022, a D.C. corrections officer and two other people, including an inmate, were charged with smuggling prohibited drugs into the jail. Also that year, two inmates died and another was hospitalized in apparent drug overdoses.
In July, inmate Marktwan Hargraves, 24, was found dead in his cell. According to a spokeswoman for the D.C. medical examiner, Hargraves died of the “combined toxic effects” of fentanyl, fluorofentanyl and mirtazapine.
Last week another inmate, 47-year-old Roy Tatum, was found dead in his cell. The cause of his death is pending autopsy by the medical examiner’s office.
TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (WCTV) – Seventy-two veterans took a trip Saturday to our nation’s capital to visit memorials honoring their service in the armed forces.
This year marks the 12th trip to Washington, D.C. for Honor Flight Tallahassee.
Early Saturday morning, veterans and their guardians met to take a charter flight up to D.C.
Throughout the day, veterans were taken to the World War II memorial, as well as the Korean and Vietnam War memorials. The veterans also visited Arlington National Cemetery and the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier.
More Tallahassee news:
The day ended with a wonderful welcome home celebration.
Our Jacob Murphey, Julia Miller, Taylor Viles, and Grace Temple accompanied the veterans, capturing moments from throughout the day.
The team will have live coverage from Washington, D.C. on Monday to share more from the day’s events.
We will continue to have coverage throughout the month of May, leading up to our Honor Flight special on Memorial Day.
To keep up with the latest news as it develops, follow WCTV on Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, Nextdoor and X (Twitter).
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4 things to know about the weather:
- Chances of rain in the morning
- Gusty Sunday
- Chilly Monday
- Temps will rise again through the work week
Download the NBC Washington app on iOS and Android to check the weather radar on the go.
After a nice and warm Saturday, changes arrive for part two of the weekend.
The first half of your Sunday will have a chance for showers. Winds will pick up with our next system and are expected to gust to about 20-30 mph. Cooler air will settle in, and lows Sunday night fall into the 40s.
Highs temps Monday will reach only into the mid to upper 50s.
However, temperatures will rise through the week, so you won’t need your jackets every day.
QuickCast
SUNDAY:
Showers, then partly cloudy
Wind: NW 10-15 mph
Gusts @ 30 mph
HIGH: Lower 60s
MONDAY:
Partly cloudy
Wind: NW 10-15 mph
Gusts @ 25 mph
HIGH: Upper 50s
Stay with Storm Team4 for the latest forecast. Download the NBC Washington app on iOS and Android to get severe weather alerts on your phone.
Washington, D.C
‘It’s a twilight zone’: Iran war casts deep shadows over IMF gathering in Washington
The most severe energy shock since the 1970s, the risk of a global recession and households everywhere stomaching a renewed surge in the cost of living – hitting the most vulnerable hardest.
In a sweltering hot Washington DC this week, the message at the International Monetary Fund meetings was chilling: things had been looking up for living standards around the world. But then came the Iran war.
“Some countries are in panic,” said the fund’s managing director, Kristalina Georgieva, addressing the finance ministers and central bank bosses in town for the IMF and World Bank spring meetings. “The sooner it [the Iran war] ends, the better for everybody.”
Such gatherings are not typically used to fight geopolitical battles. “You don’t get people shouting at one another at these things,” one senior figure remarked. But, as a record-breaking April heatwave swept the US capital, no one could ignore the mounting damage from the Iran war.
Those familiar with the mood over breakfast at a meeting of the G20’s representatives on Thursday, which included Donald Trump’s treasury secretary, Scott Bessent, and the outgoing US Federal Reserve chair, Jerome Powell – said the atmosphere in the room was sombre amid an open exchange of serious views.
“It is such a twilight-zone meeting,” said Mohamed El-Erian, a former IMF deputy managing director who is now chief economic adviser at the Allianz insurance group. “There are several shadows hanging over it: one is the shadow that comes from concern about the global economy as a whole.
“The second is that some countries are going to be particularly hard hit, and it’s mostly countries that very few people are talking about. But the third concern is the adding of insult to injury: the fact that the US, which started a war of choice, is going to be hit, but by a lot less than elsewhere in relative terms.”
Before Thursday’s breakfast, Rachel Reeves had started her day with an early-morning jog. Joined by her counterparts from Spain, Australia and New Zealand for a run down the iconic National Mall, she posted an Instagram selfie with a not-so-subtle dig: “Friends that run together – work together.”
A day earlier, the chancellor had told a CNBC conference that she thought “friends are allowed to disagree on things” as she criticised Trump’s Iran war as a “mistake” and a “folly” that had not made the world safer.
Speaking at a venue just steps away from the White House, before a one-on-one meeting with Bessent, she said this “fair message” was needed because UK families and businesses were feeling the pain from higher energy prices triggered by the conflict.
Those close to Reeves insist her meeting remained cordial. Britain and the US have significant shared interests in AI, financial services and trade. The chancellor also said the UK government had little time for the Iranian regime.
But with the IMF having warned on Tuesday that the Iran war could risk a global recession – in which Britain would be the biggest G7 casualty – it was clear Reeves had travelled to Washington ready to pick a fight.
“I’m struck by how vocal she has been and the words she used,” said one global financier. “We know the disagreement between Bessent and [European Central Bank president] Christine Lagarde earlier in the year. But that was in private.”
At a cocktail party held at the British ambassador’s residence for hundreds of diplomats and financiers – including the Bank of England’s governor, Andrew Bailey, the chief executive of Barclays, CS Venkatakrishnan, and dozens of senior figures – this transatlantic tension, weeks before King Charles’s US state visit, was a major topic of conversation.
The other, in the balmy residence gardens, was one of its former occupants, Peter Mandelson, as revelations about the former ambassador’s appointment threatened to further rock the UK government.
Before the war, the agenda for the IMF had been about global cooperation; the adoption of AI, jobs and work to eradicate poverty. Each of those tasks had now been complicated, but not least the task of countries working together.
For many at the meetings, the focus was on forging closer global cooperation without the world’s pre-eminent superpower.
“Everybody is talking about how you hedge against American decisions,” said David Miliband, the former UK foreign secretary, who now runs the International Rescue Committee. “You can’t do without them, because they’re 25% of the global economy. But, in a lot of fora, they’ve pulled out.
“So everyone has to think, how does one structure international cooperation? The old west is not coming back. And so everyone has to figure out how to position themselves for that world.”
For those gathering in Washington, there was irony in the fact that they were meeting in the halls of institutions founded, under US leadership, to promote global cooperation after the second world war. The whole idea of the Bretton Woods institutions was to avoid the dire economic conditions and warfare of the 1930s and 1940s. Yet this year’s meeting was taking place amid these intertwining problems.
In their conversations about the best economic policy response to the shock of conflict, the economists also knew the real power to make a difference lay two blocks across town from the IMF and the World Bank – behind the security cordons and construction equipment blocking the White House from public view. “It is not clear they can do anything about it,” said El-Erian.
Still, with a booming economy driven by AI – including Anthropic’s powerful Mythos model, the topic of much conversation – most countries cannot afford to completely break off US ties.
“People want to find ways to insulate themselves from the mess. But, on the other hand, they admire the US private sector,” El-Erian said. “The best way I’ve heard it put, is: they want to go long the private sector and short the mess. But it’s almost impossible to do.”
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