“Police suspect a French prosecutor of paying a prostitute with a stolen credit card just hours after addressing a conference on ethics, a Justice Ministry source says. The source said the prosecutor could be suspended and might face disciplinary procedures. He gave no further details, but Le Parisien newspaper reported on Monday the prosecutor from southwestern France presented a paper on the ethics of his profession at a conference in Germany in May before visiting the brothel and paying with a credit card which investigators suspect was stolen from a colleague.” —Reuters (UK)

(Thanks to alanr for the link.)

Sacre bleu! If it was a matter of a lawyer simply giving his discourse on ethics and then cavorting with a prostitute, you’d be tempted just to write it off to French manners. After all, you might think, a sexually sophisticated European might well make a reasonable distinction between the ethics of one’s profession and the comportment of one’s sex life. Yes, the fact that prostitution is illegal might complicate the matter somewhat, but still — cela n’est rien. It’s possible to be simultaneously a good lawyer and a suave cad.

However, the fact that the perp in question tried to pay the hooker with a stolen credit card changes everything. (And note that it wasn’t just a card he found in a wallet on the street, or a card number that he downloaded from the internet. It belonged to a colleague!) Now it’s not a story about continental mores but rather about cynical lawyers. Doesn’t it just confirm the worst stereotypes about the legal profession? The perp comes off as shameless, hypocritical, machiavellian, ruthless — which are obviously not the qualities of the suave European romantic. No, these are the worst qualities attributed to lawyers in whatever country they hail from. They sound less like Casanova than Rasputin.

VideoBox

It's like the iTunes Music Store for Porn. Download unlimited high-quality video for only $9.95/month.