By LISA HOOVER and JIMMY LAWTON

The Republican candidate for St. Lawrence County district attorney was sued for malpractice and had several grievances filed against her by an Oswego County judge in 2008, but none resulted in monetary settlements or disciplinary punishment.

And the current district attorney says two issues have been raised against her in the past 20 years, but she has never had a settlement against her for malpractice or ethical grievances.

The information has come to light as Mary Rain continues her campaign to unseat Democratic incumbent Nichole Duvé in the Nov. 5 elections.

Neither Duvé nor Rain have had disciplinary complaints listed against them in the Third Judicial Department, which includes St. Lawrence County. There were also no complaints listed against Rain in the Fourth Judicial Department, where she began practicing law.

The 2008 issues against Rain were first raised in letters to the editor from Canton resident Brad Mintener, a long-time staunch Democrat, and Norwood resident Shelley A. Warner-Levison.

But Rain said she believes Duvé is responsible for bringing past issues to the attention of the public. “She is trying to malign my name,” she said. “They have absolutely not found anything that relates to my prosecution record.”

Responded Duve, “I don’t have to tell anyone about that information. It’s all available online. It’s all been reported on.”

“It’s been all about personal attacks in her campaign,” said Rain of Duve’s campaign. “I haven’t made personal attacks.”

Countered Duve, “In the past five years my opponent has had four jobs in three different counties and ran for two public offices. She hides from the fact that she is only person in the history of the Public Defender’s office who has been stripped of her administrative duties and then resigned. I don’t think that merits praise by anyone’s standards.”

Malpractice Suit

Joshua Parente, a former police officer in the Village of Homer, sued Rain for failing to follow required procedures in a civil action. Rain also had several grievances filed against her by Oswego County Court Judge Walter Hafner in 2008.

Rain on Friday acknowledged the malpractice lawsuit, but claimed it was baseless. “He tried to sue me, he had no case,” she said. “Those claims are based on nothing, they are frivolous.”

Specifically, Rain was accused of allegedly filing a late answer, failing to respond to a motion in writing or by appearing in court, and failing to properly allege cause to reopen a default judgment, according to the case complaint.

The suit against Parente arose from a dispute between Parente and the Village of Homer, according to an article in the Cortland Standard.

Parente was ordered to pay the village nearly $10,000 after failing to appear in court to answer a lawsuit claiming he had violated his contract with the village. The lawsuit alleged that Parente was obligated to work for the village police department for three years because the department had paid for his training, but failed to do so, according to the Cortland Standard.

Parente filed a countersuit against the village for unpaid overtime, according to the Standard. He also sought to have the judgment against him thrown out, claiming he never received notice to appear, the newspaper article said.

Parente’s claims were based on issues that arose during the village’s lawsuit against him, prior to her representation, according to Rain.

Rain said she had agreed to represent Parente in the countersuit. Parente paid her $2,000 to provide legal services, including preparing and processing an answer and representing Parente through the civil case, the complaint said. Parente claimed damages in the amount of $10,000, according to the complaint.

“I did speak with Joshua prior to him retaining me,” she said. “He was supposed to get a union attorney to assist him with the case.”

“I made it clear to him that I did not represent him on the original case,” she said. After the default judgment was entered against him, Rain agreed to help him reopen the case. “Obviously he was happy with me, because he came back to me to ask me to reopen the judgment,” she said.

Rain claimed she did everything she was required to do in Parente’s case. “He retained me to reopen it,” she said. “I wrote up a motion to do that.”

“For what he retained me to do, I did,” she said.

Rain and Parente settled the matter out of court, according to court documents. Rain denied any monetary settlement to Parente. “I absolutely did not owe him any money,” she said.

Ethics Issues

More than 20 ethical violations were filed against Rain in two complaints by Oswego Judge Hafner, according to a Nov. 11, 2008 article in Oswego County Today.

The grievances filed against her by Judge Hafner were in connection with his reelection campaign. One of Rain’s co-workers at the district attorney’s office was running against him, according to Rain.

The attorneys in the office were campaigning for the challenger, and the “judge filed a grievance against all of us because of our political activities,” Rain said. The grievances were filed “against several of us, not just me,” she said.

The New York State Prosecutor’s Association had approved the group’s political activities, according to Rain, but the New York State Bar Association disagreed.

The grievances were “found, not really unfounded, but ‘ok, we know you followed the New York State Prosecutor’s Association, but you can’t, and if you continue to follow them we’ll take action against you,’” Rain said, “so we stopped.”

Rain claimed incumbent district attorney Nicole Duvé’s assistants engaged in similar campaign activities during Duvé’s 2009 campaign. “I warned Nicole about it,” she said.

Duvé Complaints

Duvé said she has never had a settlement against her for malpractice or ethical grievances. She said there have been two instances where complaints were raised against her. One occurred more than 20 years ago, when she says an individual claimed she failed to respond to a phone call in a timely manner.

Duvé said nothing came of the issue because it was “unfounded.”

A second complaint made against Duvé occurred when she was the district attorney. She said an assistant district attorney let “paperwork pile up on his desk” and another attorney complained that he did not get the information he needed in a timely manner.

Duvé said that attorney no longer works for her office.

Duvé “says she wants to stay above the fray, but she was deep down in it last night,” Rain said of a recent meeting between the candidates.

But Duvé sees it differently “My opponent has misrepresented facts about my record and about her record. My record speaks for itself. I got $1 million to help law enforcement prosecution efforts. I streamlined efforts at the office with a new case management system at zero cost to the taxpayers and since 2002 the violent crime rate has gone down 42 percent.”

North Country This Week News Editor Craig Freilich contributed to this report.