Attorney suspended for pooping in a Pringles can, leaving it in victim advocate's parking lot
The Ohio Supreme Court suspended an attorney who defecated into a Pringles potato chip can and then tossed it into a parking lot of a crime-victim advocacy center.
Criminal defense attorney Jack A. Blakeslee's conduct called into question his fitness to practice law, the court decided.
Blakeslee's defense? He said he didn't target anyone but had a habit of putting his feces in Pringles cans and randomly throwing them from his car. He claimed he pulled the Pringles prank at least 10 times that year.
But the court didn't buy it and said Blakeslee purposely chose the Haven of Hope in Cambridge, Ohio, as his "drop zone." Surveillance video captured the incident in November 2021.
Blakeslee had known the victim advocates at the center for years and was scheduled to see them in court 15 minutes after the Pringles deposit. At the time, Blakeslee was representing someone accused in a capital murder case.
The court decided to suspend Blakeslee from the practice of law for one year, with six months of that suspension stayed.
Blakeslee has been an attorney since 1976. He had no prior disciplinary action against him.
In determining what punishment to mete out, the court relied on a previous ruling involving "The Naked Photographer" − an Ohio House GOP caucus attorney who photographed more than 30 women as he flashed them.
Steve Linnen was indefinitely suspended in 2006 for that conduct and he pleaded guilty to 53 misdemeanor offenses. He got his law license restored in 2014.
The court also relied on punishment in the case of Scott Blauvelt, a Butler County attorney with a history of public indecency. Blauvelt was indefinitely suspended in 2022.
Laura Bischoff is a reporter for the USA TODAY Network Ohio Bureau, which serves the Columbus Dispatch, Cincinnati Enquirer, Akron Beacon Journal and 18 other affiliated news organizations across Ohio.