Kansas law professor calls for attention to abuse of clients as former prosecutor goes on trial
Linus Thuston hands his wedding ring to his wife before being handcuffed following a Sept. 4, 2024, hearing in Neosho County District Court. In that case, he pleaded guilty to misdemeanor financial crimes. He now faces charges of felony perjury and misdemeanor witness intimidation. (Sherman Smith/Kansas Reflector)
TOPEKA — A Washburn University law professor hopes news coverage of a former prosecutor’s conduct will bring attention to the problem of attorneys sexually abusing or harassing their clients, a focal point of her research.
Part of the problem: That’s not why Linus Thuston is on trial this week.
Thuston, the former Neosho County prosecutor, faces three low-level felony perjury charges for his testimony last year in a drug case in which he claimed to invite off-the-books confidential informants to his house to gather information for police. Some of the people he named as informants disputed his claims, according to a court document that was unsealed at Kansas Reflector’s request. Thuston is also charged with two misdemeanor crimes, accused of trying to intimidate two of the people who said he was lying.
But Thuston, who also ran a private law practice, has not faced charges or disciplinary action for convincing 50 women to send him nude photos in exchange for legal services, according to a sheriff’s investigation.
Gillian Chadwick, director of the Center for Children and Family Law at Washburn University, has researched cases in which attorneys took advantage of vulnerable clients and faced little consequence. She wrote a paper on the topic that calls for reforms in the legal profession, and is conducting an online survey to hear from victims.
Thuston’s case is unique, she said, because there were so many people involved.
“I don’t think it speaks well of the system that this is where we are with this case,” Chadwick said. “I think the fact that the sheriff credibly reports providing documentation of him essentially sexually extorting 50 women whom he knew in a professional capacity, either as clients or complaining witnesses or defendants, and no legal action has been taken on those facts, is concerning.”
Thuston’s attorney didn’t respond to a Kansas Reflector inquiry for this story.
Exploiting vulnerable clients
Chadwick represented victims of domestic and sexual violence as an attorney in Washington, D.C., before joining the Washburn law faculty in 2016.
When she arrived in Kansas, she said, she came across a case where an attorney had been disciplined for sexual violence against a client and was shocked the person was still practicing law. She started to look more closely at the legal profession and how such cases are handled.
Chadwick’s 2022 research paper, “Time’s Up for Attorney-Client Sexual Violence,” concluded that attorneys nationwide had been allowed to prey on marginalized and desperate clients with impunity. Lawyers hold “profound” power over their clients, she argued, especially when they take cases pro bono, which means they aren’t paid, and in criminal and family law cases.
“The consequences of losing one’s liberty, custody of children, and even parental rights create incredibly high stakes for clients in these practice areas. Criminal and family lawyers often work in solo or small firm practice. This combination of distressed clients and isolated office settings makes clients in these environments especially vulnerable,” she wrote in the paper published by the University of Maryland Law Journal of Race, Religion, Gender and Class.
Common threads in the cases she examined: little or no dispute about the facts, but a gross misunderstanding of consent.
Among the examples in her paper was an Ohio attorney who coerced an indigent criminal defendant into having sex with him eight times, lied to a judge about the relationship and was charged with sex crimes. The charges were dismissed in exchange for pleading guilty to misdemeanor trespassing and obstructing government business. A disciplinary board concluded the client had benefited from the arrangement of trading sex for services and gave the attorney a six-month suspension from practicing law.
Chadwick’s paper recommended the legal profession ban sexual contact with clients and disbar attorneys who break the rule. She also argued for the legal profession to develop prevention strategies, including mandatory education about sexual violence.
“What I saw in the cases that I looked at is women who are in really difficult circumstances, who were facing something really difficult, were facing the loss of their liberty, the loss of their children, and their attorney was using that vulnerability to exploit them,” Chadwick said in an interview. “I can’t imagine how traumatizing that is to be experiencing trauma and then to be victimized by the person who is supposed to be helping.”
Chadwick’s research has led her to a new project: Gathering voices of people who were victimized by their attorneys through the anonymous online survey.
“We know from the research that those are people who struggle to be believed and understood by the legal system,” Chadwick said. “They have justifiable mistrust for the legal system. And so I think that’s a huge issue.”
Photos and testimony
Neosho County Sheriff Greg Taylor revealed last year that a woman had complained in 2022 that Thuston asked her to send him nude photos to continue providing legal services. The woman told the sheriff she begrudgingly sent the photos because she felt like she had no other choice.
Taylor said he opened an investigation into sexual extortion and, with a warrant for Thuston’s social media messages, identified about 50 women who complied with Thuston’s requests for nude photos in exchange for legal services through his private practice. Thuston also had prosecuted about a third of those women, Taylor said.
Separate from that investigation, the state’s disciplinary office for attorneys issued Thuston an informal admonishment last year for telling a woman she owed him oral sex.
When Thuston took the stand last year as a witness in a hearing for a drug case, he admitted he exchanged salacious photos with a woman he described as a confidential informant. Under scrutiny from the special prosecutor and defense attorney, he testified he frequently met privately with off-the-books confidential informants, sometimes at his home or in other discreet places around town. He named several men he claimed were secretly giving him information about drug deals.
Thuston retired as prosecutor soon after testifying in that case and pleaded guilty to two misdemeanor financial crimes. In December, he was charged with lying under oath.
His defense attorney, Robert Myers, tried to block Kansas Reflector’s request to release the charging affidavit in the case.
“The release of the affidavit has great likelihood of finding a fair and impartial jury nearly impossible,” Myers wrote in his objection. “The number of articles with statements from agents of the State have already began to taint the potential jury pool.”
Myers also wrote that “any part of the affidavit that makes reference to any type of sexual behavior is unrelated to the alleged crime.”
“Any reference to pictures exchanged have nothing to do with the present charges and is an invasion of privacy,” Myers added.
The judge sided with Kansas Reflector and allowed the affidavit to become public, with redactions of explicit material.
The affidavit shows three men Thuston had identified as confidential informants were worried about being called “a snitch.” One of the men told a sheriff’s deputy his kids were at risk.
Jury selection was scheduled to begin Monday in Neosho County District Court in Erie.