More trouble for Coaty

From the January 28, 2009 issue of the Newport Daily News comes word of more trouble for former 75th District Representative Steve Coaty. Earlier this month, the Supreme Court Disciplinary Board filed charges against Coaty alleging that he forged a former client's name on papers filed with the Department of Corrections, and also that he forged a former client's name on a settlement check, endorsing the check and depositing it in his client account.

Another former client, Debra A. Mack, claimed that her civil suit against the City of Newport was dismissed because Coaty failed to show up for a court hearing. The board has charged Coaty with incompetence, failure to "act with reasonable diligence," lack of communication with his client and filing baseless claims against his former client and her new attorney, Richard "Mike" Fisher.

Debra Mack's legal odyssey began in May 2002 when she tripped and fell on a Newport sidewalk. She hired an attorney to sue the city, but he turned the case over to a partner (none other than District 73 Representative J. Russell Jackson), who in turn referred her to Coaty. The board alleges that Coaty failed for several months to produce Mack's medical records, and when the city's attorney filed a motion to dismiss the suit, it was granted on June 2, 2008 when then-Representative Coaty failed to show up for the scheduled hearing. Coaty never informed Mack that the case had been dismissed; Fisher happened to be in the courtroom that day, and since he was a family friend he told her. When Mack contacted Coaty, he promised to get the dismissal overturned and the case brought to court in July, but he never did.

Mack finally got fed up and hired Fisher to represent her. He requested that Coaty turn over his case files on Mack, but he never did. Instead, he sued Mack and Fisher on September 17. Mack then went to the Newport Daily News and told them what had happened, and two weeks before the election the paper ran a story on Mack's troubles with Coaty. On election day, Coaty lost his re-election race to Democratic challenger Peter F. Martin by 2823 votes to 2336.

As the NDN notes, Coaty's victory in the December 2007 special election "quickly became a rallying point for House Republicans, who felt Coaty's victory in a Democratic district signaled a turn of the political tide for Republicans in the state." Their hopes were dashed on November 4, 2008 when Coaty lost his seat, along with fellow Republicans Bruce Long of Middletown, William McManus of Lincoln, and Nicholas Gorham of Coventry. The Republicans also lost control of open seats in Districts 28, 41, 66, and 70.

Did Debra Mack's story cost Coaty his seat? Coaty's own lawyer, Christopher Gontarz, seems to think so. When he heard the NDN was running this story, he contacted them and said, "A Welsh politician, Nye Bevan, once said 'Politics is a blood sport.' It's certainly true in Rhode Island and it's especially true on Aquidneck Island." Is Coaty being targeted by the state's Democrats, or is Gontarz just being a WATB?