Tulsa lawyer faces possible sanctions

TULSA, Okla. (AP) -- A veteran Tulsa attorney says he is growing weary of allegations that he and his law firm have acted improperly.

An order filed this week by U.S District Judge Sven Erik Holmes outlines recent alleged conduct that could violate previous court-imposed sanctions against attorney Rabon Martin and his firm, Martin & Associates.

Martin is to appear Nov. 9 before a panel of federal magistrates who will study whether he and the firm should be sanctioned.

"I wish they would just let go," Martin said Wednesday. "They are searching for some sort of impropriety, and there's nothing there. I wish this would all go away and they would just let me get on with the practice of law."

Martin upset Holmes last October when, due to a back injury, he missed a miss pre-sentencing hearing involving a client named Albert Pike Ballew of Broken Arrow.

Holmes did not see a motion asking for a delay before he took the bench and reacted angrily when he saw that Martin wasn't present. Holmes discharged Martin from the case and ordered him to return to Ballew's mother the $11,500 he had earned from the case.

In addition, his firm was barred from representing any new clients in federal court in the Northern District of Oklahoma until the money was repaid.

Last month, the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that Martin had not received proper due process and that the sanctions were not warranted.

Holmes' latest order deals with other aspects of the Ballew case and contains information about the alleged conduct of Martin and his firm in two other criminal cases and a civil case.

Specifically, the order states that Martin supposedly misrepresented federal sentencing guidelines to Ballew before being removed from the case.

Holmes' order this week also implies that Martin's firm may not have fully complied with a Jan. 24 order that forbade it from taking on any new federal clients in a pending civil matter and in another drug case.