PROVIDENCE, R.I. — Suspended Providence lawyer Keven McKenna is a free man.
Superior Court Judge Netti C. Vogel on Friday ordered McKenna, 73, released after he paid off $11,667 in court sanctions to Bristol resident Ron Blanchard.
"He has purged himself of contempt. The case is closed," Vogel said.
Vogel ordered McKenna, of Lincoln, held for civil contempt after he failed to appear in court Jan. 3 for a hearing on the sanctions.
Deputy sheriffs arrested him Tuesday at his Acorn Street office. He spent three nights at the Adult Correctional Institutions before a family member forwarded the money to his lawyer, William Tocco.
Vogel gave him 30 days to pay off the remaining $1,000 to Blanchard.
"It seems this gentleman has spent a heck of a lot of effort since the sanctions were imposed," Vogel said.
Now-retired Superior Court Judge Patricia A. Hurst imposed $19,267 in sanctions against McKenna in 2015 after finding that he had filed numerous court actions in people’s names without their knowledge or consent.
Hurst ordered that the sanctions be paid to Blanchard, a defendant in one of the cases at issue.
"He cost me over $200,000. I only got a small percentage of that back," Blanchard said after Friday's brief court appearance.
Blanchard vowed to get the transcript of Vogel's proceedings and give them to state Supreme Court Chief Disciplinary Counsel David Curtin.
"My goal is to get him disbarred. He is out of control. He doesn't follow the rules," Blanchard said.
The state, meanwhile, is asking a U.S. District Court judge to permanently bar McKenna from filing lawsuits against the Supreme Court and a host of other defendants. A former state representative and city municipal court judge, McKenna has filed eight lawsuits targeting the state since 2009.
Nonetheless, it seemed like another court action might be coming the state's way as McKenna, who is married to Sheila Bentley, ex-wife of former Providence Mayor Vincent A. Cianci Jr., asked Vogel for the paperwork related to his arrest.
The high court suspended McKenna's’s license to practice law in 2015 for engaging in professional misconduct. The court has since declined to reinstate his license.