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Pittsburgh attorney Leonard Berger stood firmly in his law partner’s corner Monday as he awaited Christopher Urbano’s release from jail.
Mr. Urbano had been lodged in the Allegheny County lockup since Wednesday, when an angry judge found him in contempt for not showing up a day earlier at a rape trial. Common Pleas Judge Philip A. Ignelzi ordered Mr. Urbano to spend Thanksgiving behind bars.
“Of course, he obviously would rather not be in jail, and I guess he feels bad that he missed court and wasn’t able to get there on time, and this whole thing deteriorated into the kind of mess it did. Obviously, nobody wants to spend six days in jail, especially when he was trying to accommodate the court,” Mr. Berger said, several hours after Mr. Urbano was granted bond and ordered to be released on his own recognizance.
“He’ll come through this,” Mr. Berger added. “He’s a very good attorney. He’s had very good results. … They don’t speak to a reckless attorney. They speak to an attorney who does a very good job for his clients.”
As part of the conditions of his bond, Mr. Urbano must undergo a drug and alcohol evaluation as well as a mental health evaluation.
Phillip DiLucente, one of Mr. Urbano’s lawyers, said he told the court that his client has not “exhibited any signs in jail or in court that I know of that would necessitate” a drug and alcohol evaluation.
Common Pleas Judge Jeffrey A. Manning, who handled the brief bond hearing Monday morning, said such an evaluation is standard. “We’re not saying he has a problem,” the judge said. “His lawyers made a representation that he does not have a drug or alcohol problem.”
Mr. Berger said he is not worried about the evaluations, which must be completed this week.
“I know him very well. I speak to him multiple times every day. I don’t believe there’s any issue,” said Mr. Berger, who is partners with Mr. Urbano in a civil practice. “I’m quite confident that those tests will all come back negative, and that’s not an issue.”
Sheriff’s deputies took Mr. Urbano, 40, away Wednesday morning after Judge Ignelzi held him in direct criminal contempt for not showing up. Judge Ignelzi called Mr. Urbano’s behavior “reckless.”
“I am as livid as I could possibly be about this. We had witnesses in from out of town. We had families in from out of town,” the judge said at the time.
Mr. Urbano had been scheduled to represent Ricardo Campbell in a nonjury trial that had been continued since August, but Mr. Urbano was in North Carolina and failed to get back in time.
Mr. Urbano told the judge that he had driven to a rural part of North Carolina on Nov. 18 and intended to fly back to Pittsburgh last Tuesday for the trial. He said he drove to Wilmington, N.C., to fly back but missed his flight.
“He’s very busy, and he works very hard, and, as a result, that causes conflicts in calendars because as every attorney can tell you, courts don’t particularly care about conflicts and, as a result, it causes conflicts,” Mr. Berger said. “He was scheduled to be out of town for the Thanksgiving holiday and that didn’t work for the court, so he tried to get back because they wanted this particular case scheduled when they wanted it scheduled, and he had difficulty making it back.”
Mr. Urbano was ordered to reimburse travel costs for witnesses and family members who traveled from out of town. Mr. Berger confirmed that a check was written out of the firm’s business account for $1,702.60, which will be reimbursed by Mr. Urbano.
Judge Ignelzi is expected to handle Mr. Urbano’s sentencing for contempt prior to the rape trial starting.
Source: post-gazette.com
Date Posted: Thursday, December 1st, 2016 , Total Page Views: 1660
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