Marc DoumbasCuyahoga County Sheriff’s Department
COLUMBUS, Ohio — The Ohio Supreme Court on Tuesday voted to indefinitely suspend a Strongsville lawyer convicted of bribing victims of sexual assault in an effort to keep his client, the women’s attacker, out of jail.
Although Marc Doumbas did not himself offer the money, the Court said he was complicit because he knew that other lawyers working on the case, including Anthony Calabrese III, had offered tens of thousands of dollars to two victims of their client, Thomas Castro.
Doumbas served a year in state prison after a jury found him guilty of two felony counts of bribery in December 2013. He was also ordered to pay more than $10,000 in fines.
The Court, in a 4-3 decision handed down Tuesday morning, voted to indefinitely suspend his law license. The decision will also require him to show proof that he paid all of his fines before he can file for reinstatement.
Doumbas, who was admitted to the bar in 2001, has been on an interim suspension since 2014.
The Court in 2015 voted to permanently disbar Calabrese after his conviction on racketeering charges in the fallout of the Cuyahoga County corruption probe that ensnared dozens of officials for paying and taking bribes. Calabrese is serving a nine-year prison sentence.
Calabrese represented Castro in business interests when Castro was accused of raping two women. Calabrese then brought Marshall, Calabrese’s uncle, and Doumbas in to handle the criminal case.
Marshall offered one of the victims $54,000 plus an additional $6,000 for her attorney for her “pain and suffering,” according to court records. But the woman construed the offer as a bribe and rejected it.
After Castro pleaded guilty to two counts of sexual battery, Marshall tried to again offer the same woman $50,000 to “say something nice to the judge” during the sentencing hearing. That message never reached the woman.
The second victim was initially offered $50,000 by Calabrese through her attorney in a potential civil settlement in exchange for writing a letter asking for treatment for Castro rather than jail time. According to the court of appeals decision, Calabrese eventually increased the offer amount to $60,000, then $90,000, but the woman rejected the offers.
Judge Joan Synenberg sentenced Castro to four years in prison.
Doumbas has maintained throughout his conviction and his appeal that the payments were not bribes and his actions were not criminal. An appellate court upheld his conviction in 2015.
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