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Rights/Reprints

The North Carolina bar filed disciplinary charges against a former federal prosecutor for practicing law without an active license, the Legal Profession Blog reported yesterday.

David P. Folmar Jr. represented the Justice Department from November 2003 to March 2009 without a valid license from a state bar, according to a complaint filed by the North Carolina bar to its disciplinary hearing commission. An Assistant U.S. Attorney must have an active license from at least one state bar to practice law. Folmar’s Florida State Bar license was retired and his North Carolina State Bar license was suspended for failing to obey mandatory continuing legal education obligations.

The ex-prosecutor did not tell his supervisors in the Middle District of North Carolina U.S. Attorney’s office about his suspension, according to the complaint.

“[Folmar] falsely held himself out to the courts, his colleagues and the public as authorized and qualified to practice law,” the complaint said.

Middle District U.S. Attorney Anna Mills Wagoner fired Folmar in March 2009, according to the Salisbury Post. She then notified federal judges and lawyers who worked with Folmar on hundreds of cases, the newspaper said.

Wagoner said in a March 2009 letter to Chief U.S. District Court Judge James A. Beaty Jr., who serves in the Middle District, that she didn’t believe that Folmar’s suspension “had any material effect on any case,” according to the Post.

The newspaper said in May that the DOJ Office of Professional Responsibility was investigating the matter.

The Post later reported that Folmar was convicted in 2008 of driving while impaired. Police reports said he had almost three times the legal blood-alcohol content of 0.08.