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4.2.12 WC: 191694 court cross examination by Tyson's trial lawyer, the issue of the contingency fee agreement was explicitly raised. Yet, the prosecutor did everything in his power to keep the truth from coming out. He arranged for the Washington family to take the courtroom pass away from their lawyer, so that he could not attend the trial and feel ethically compelled to stand up and correct the Washingtons' testimony when they falsely denied any contingency fee or written agreement with him. (The prosecutor also had an ethical obligation to correct the false testimony given by his witness. Indeed he had an even greater obligation because he was the one who put on the testimony that he knew was false.) The ploy worked—at least for a while. But the Rhode Island lawyer soon learned that his clients were not being straight with the jury. He began to worry that he might have an ethical obligation to blow the whistle on his clients, as lawyers do when their clients or witnesses are committing perjury. So the lawyer went to the Rhode Island Disciplinary Counsel—the attorney in charge of enforcing the ethical rules that govern lawyers—to obtain guidance. She referred the matter to the Rhode Island Supreme Court which issued an unprecedented opinion concluding that “the attorney had an obligation to disclose the existence of his contingent fee agreement to the [Indiana] criminal trial court.” The state’s highest court found that the agreement’s “existence might well have had a bearing upon the jury’s determination.” The Rhode Island court then directed the attorney to disclose to the Indiana court the information that the Washingtons had withheld. He did so but the Indiana courts ignored this new information, despite the conclusion of the Rhode Island Supreme Court that it might well have affected the jury’s verdict. Indeed, what could be more important than the fact—unbeknownst to the jury—that Desiree Washington had millions of dollars riding on whether Mike Tyson was convicted or acquitted, since without a conviction, it would have been difficult for her to collect monetary damages or sell her story to the media. The only thing that might have been more important is that she had been untruthful about her financial motive for accusing Tyson of rape. It also turns out that Desiree was hardly the naive virgin she pretended to be. Once her name was disclosed following the trial, numerous witnesses confirmed that Desiree Washington was a sexually active young woman who hung out in nightclubs. Indeed, her lawyer implied to the media that Washington had been examined for venereal disease a month before she had sex with Tyson and that she was "not sexually active" during that brief period. Not only was the jury misinformed about Desiree Washington's general sexual proclivities, they were also denied the most crucial eyewitness testimony of what she was doing just minutes before she went to Tyson's hotel room. She denied necking with Tyson in the limo on the way to the hotel. Indeed, she testified that she rebuffed his attempt to kiss her and "jumped back." Tyson's testimony was precisely the opposite. He swore that when he kissed her, "she kissed me," and that on the drive to his hotel, he and Washington were "kissing, touching." The jury obviously believed Desiree's testimony because Tyson's was uncorroborated and self-serving. But it turns out that there were three eyewitnesses -- disinterested outsiders who happened to be in front of the hotel when the limo pulled up -- who saw what was going on inside and outside the limo just before Tyson and Washington left it to go to his hotel room. They saw them necking -- "they were all over each other" -- and holding hands on the way to the hotel (Desiree denied both necking and holding hands). 236 HOUSE_OVERSIGHT_017323