ECI: Judge removes attorney from prison corruption case for comments posted to Facebook

An attorney assigned to represent a correctional officer charged in a scheme to smuggle drugs and other items into a state prison facility was removed from the case after posting about it on Facebook.

U. S. District Judge James K. Bredar recently ordered attorney Anton J.S. Keating be removed from the case. Keating, a Baltimore-based attorney, had been assigned to represent Jocelyn Byrd, a correctional officer at the Eastern Correctional Institution.

Keating posted a link on his personal Facebook page to a WBAL-TV story about the case, along with the words, "back in the saddle again .... .! need the action and the fee ..."

In his order, Bredar wrote that "it is highly inappropriate for a lawyer, in reference to a case and in a semi-public setting to imply, even jokingly, that he might be out of practice, or that he is in need of some stimulation in his personal or professional life that he hopes the case will provide, or that he is involved in the case primarily for the fee it will generate."
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