By: Caryn Tamber

As you probably read in today’s paper, the Court of Appeals yesterday sanctioned a lawyer for exchanging a Vicodin pill for oral sex in a women’s restroom. While searching for additional information on disciplined lawyer Jeffrey Marcalus yesterday, I came across (part of) an Annapolis Capital article written shortly after his case was argued. The Capital points out that Marcalus’ attorney, Andrew Jay Graham, compared the drugs-for-sex exchange to a guy bringing a woman flowers.

Sure enough, I watched the recording of the argument, and Graham says to the judges, “Would it be different if he’d given her a $50 bouquet of flowers and he holds it out and says, ‘What’s in it for me?’ and she offers this? Does that make it prostitution? I don’t think so.”

The court is skeptical, with Judge Mary Ellen Barbera pointing out that Marcalus himself obviously thought the encounter was not so harmless, or he wouldn’t have told police officers about it in order to impeach the woman’s credibility after she made a rape allegation against Marcalus’ client.