Cooling the "Hotshot"

[September 17th, 2003] The case against hotshot defense lawyer Randy Ray Richardson is growing.

In April, Multnomah County District Attorney Mike Schrunk accused his former prosecutor of bribing a witness to lie on the stand. The allegation came from one witness in an attempted-murder case ("Randy Richardson was a hotshot criminal-defense lawyer. Now he needs one," WW, May 28, 2003).

Now, court documents show, a second witness in that case, State v. Lambert, has admitted to lying on the stand and has agreed to testify against Richardson. The former prosecutor previously denied any wrongdoing.

Prosecutor Allison Rhodes declined to comment on the ongoing investigation, but an indictment against the lawyer could be coming soon--and, WW has learned, not just for the Lambert case.

"He's in big trouble," says Ali Houdroge, another former Richardson client, who was recently interviewed by a secret grand jury eyeballing Richardson.

In 2001, Houdroge hired the lawyer to defend him against an assault charge filed by his ex-wife. Later, the salesman filed a complaint with the state bar accusing Richardson of sleeping with his ex.

According to the bar investigation, Houdroge's ex-wife had demanded money for not testifying. In a telephone conversation secretly taped by Houdroge, Richardson says he told the woman, "if she would just stay on board, good things will eventually happen to everybody."

On Nov. 14, 2002, a bar investigator wrote that Richardson "pressured" Houdroge's ex "not to testify."

The bar dropped the case after Richardson denied the accusations, but Portland police detectives have seized the tape as evidence.