Embattled Attorney: I'm Supposed to Allow Him to Disrespect Me with Impunity? Bulls---!

A Chicago lawyer facing a disciplinary hearing for allegedly harassing and abusing a client’s father said he was merely standing up for himself.

“After all of my loyalty, what does he show me? Disrespect,” attorney Michael Jerome Moore said of Leon Buchanan Jr., the father of his former client, Leon Buchanan III.

Moore represented Buchanan III in a 2012 Cook County aggravated battery case. He agreed to work for a $3,500 flat fee, according to the Illinois Registration and Disciplinary Committee, but eventually wanted another $500. Moore only received $200, the ARDC complaint said, and he proceed to launch a series of abusive voicemails, telling Buchanan:

• You are a piece of garbage. All black people are alike. You’re slovenly, ignorant.
• You better give me my money or your son’s case is going to be delayed.
• I’m sick of you, you piece of s---.
• I don’t know who’s the biggest bitch. You or (your family). I’m going to lock you up.
• Low class n-----s. I’m going to have you all locked up.
• You call me with stupid s---. Wait until (the) next court date.
• You have until 5 on Thursday. (Bring a) $300, no $500 check ... Or on Friday I’ll withdraw. I already told the state’s attorney to writ your son over.
• You are such a p----. They are going to writ him over. I tried to tell your stupid ass. Other lawyers would charge $10,000 for this case. Start planning for another lawyer.
• You’re ugly, low class, ignorant. I’ll finish with you when he gets off. You’re demeaning your son.
• Help your son. Pay. Stop delaying case.

Moore admitted to the statements and called Buchanan “low class” for recording him.

“I’m supposed to allow him to disrespect me with impunity?” Moore asked. “Bulls---!”

Moore, whose registered business address is an apartment on the Near North Side, said he “worked tirelessly” on Buchanan III’s case for “almost two years,” visiting him in the county jail “four or five times” before giving way to a public defender.

Buchanan was found guilty and sentenced to 62 months in prison, but Department of Corrections records show he was released in January on the same day he was transported to Stateville. He is now on parole.

Moore believes he would have achieved a better disposition.

“I could have won the case yesterday,” he said.

The ARDC has also accused Moore of leaving a harassing and anti-semitic voicemail with the administrator of a nursing home, neglecting a criminal appeal in Wisconsin, and failing to cooperate with a disciplinary investigation.

Moore claims he did cooperate.

“I answered this in writing more than a year ago. They keep propounding the situation,” he said. “I don’t know if it’s political or something.”

“This is a free speech country,” Moore pointed out, calling his situation “ridiculousness.”

“I’m a human being,” he explained. “I got tired of the disrespect.”