Appeals court rejects argument lawyer was jealous in New Brunswick sex assault case
NEW BRUNSWICK – A state appellate court has rejected a Lodi man's argument that he deserved a new trial on his aggravated sexual assault conviction because his attorney had a conflict of interest after he alleged she learned he was having relationships with other women.
Charles Lucas, 38, was sentenced to 15 years in prison after a Middlesex County jury found him guilty in the incident on St. Patrick's Day 2013.
The jury deliberated for eight hours before finding Lucas guilty of assaulting a sleeping woman at his girlfriend's apartment in the early hours of March 17, 2013.
Lucas, who lost a previous appeal, argued in this request for post-conviction relief that his attorney, unnamed in court papers, was ineffective during his trial.
He claimed that he had "an inappropriate relationship" with her because they socialized, had personal phone calls, exchanged text messages and pictures and had sexual relations on four occasions, the last time a month before his trial began in July 2015, according to court papers.
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Lucas argued that a few days before the trial began, the Middlesex County Prosecutor's Office gave his lawyer printouts of text messages from his phone where he "proclaimed (his) love" for other women. He contended that she became angry and called him a liar.
During the trial, Lucas alleged, she "threw (his) case" based on jealousy, but the appellate court said that was a "bald assertion unaccompanied by facts supported by competent evidence."
There was no evidence that the text messages were from the period Lucas and the lawyer were having a relationship, the court ruled.
Instead the messages were from around the time of the incident, more than year before their sexual relationship began, and the prosecution was considering whether to use them to rebut his claim, if he chose to testify at the trial, that he would not have had sex with the victim because he had a girlfriend at the time, the court ruled.
In its 45-page decision, the appellate court noted that New Jersey's Rules of Professional Conduct do not explicitly prohibit sexual relationships between a lawyer and a client, though the state Supreme Court has stated that such relationships have a "strong potential' for unethical behavior.
The court found that Lucas had presented no evidence that the lawyer had bartered her legal services for his participation in a sexual relationship or that she used her position as his lawyer to pressure him into sex.
Instead, the court found, Lucas's affidavit that accompanied the appeal "describes a lengthy relationship between two consenting adults."
The court also found that Lucas did not provide direct evidence that she was ineffective during the trial.
Lucas was found guilty of assaulting a 33-year-old woman who had fallen asleep on a couch in his girlfriend's apartment because she became intoxicated celebrating her birthday.
Another friend, who was sleeping on the floor next to the couch, awoke and saw Lucas having sex with someone on the couch who appeared to be asleep, court papers say.
Email: mdeak@mycentraljersey.com
Mike Deak is a reporter for mycentraljersey.com. To get unlimited access to his articles on Somerset and Hunterdon counties, please subscribe or activate your digital account today.
This article originally appeared on MyCentralJersey.com: NJ court rejects argument lawyer was jealous n sex assault case
