Ex-deputy prosecutor Wyser resigns from bar

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Former Marion County deputy prosecutor David Wyser has resigned from the practice of law rather than face proceedings by the Indiana Supreme Court Disciplinary Commission.

The court on Aug. 28 accepted Wyser’s resignation  more than a year after he pleaded guilty to bribery and six months after he was suspended. 

Wyser pleaded guilty in July to charges that he accepted a $2,500 bribe in exchange for facilitating the early release of a woman sentenced in the murder-for-hire of her husband. Wyser was sentenced to three years of probation in November. He served as a chief trial deputy under former Marion County prosecutor Carl Brizzi.

Paula Willoughby was sentenced in 1991 to 110 years in prison in the slaying of her husband, Darrell, outside Indianapolis Motor Speedway. Willoughby’s sentence was reduced on appeal to 70 years, then modified in July 2009 to time served after Willoughby’s father, businessman Harrison Epperly, made political contributions through his company of at least $28,500 to Brizzi and Wyser in 2006 and 2007.

Wyser had agreed to testify in federal corruption investigations that targeted Brizzi, but the case against Brizzi unraveled  last year after a jury cleared three others who the government alleged had improperly funneled money to Brizzi, including his friend and former business partner, John Bales.

Wyser was admitted to practice in Indiana in 1997.  He also is licensed in California, where he was admitted to the bar in 1991. He has been on inactive status there since 1999, according to the State Bar of California’s website. In July his status changed to not eligible to practice law in the Golden State.

The Supreme Court’s order was unanimous except for Justice Mark Massa, who recused himself because he publicly expressed an opinion about the case in April 2010.

 

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