The Missouri Supreme Court has taken away Thomas Hollingsworth’s license as an assistant prosecuting attorney in Jefferson County for an undetermined amount of time.
Along with the suspension that was ordered last Tuesday was a $1,000 fine. This was because Hollingsworth sent a joke email from the computer of another lawyer, as KSDK reported.
First Alert 4 describes what happened on June 9, 2023. During court breaks, lawyers often work in the jury room. Hollingsworth took advantage of this by using assistant public defender Charles Argana’s unattended and unprotected laptop to write a fake email to Sheriff Dave Marshak complimenting his clothes. He then sent the email with Argana’s signed name on it.
The joke email, which said, “David, You look so good in Khaki pants and that black shirt,” seemed like innocent fun to Hollingsworth, but it caused a lot of worry because the laptop had client files and other private information on it.
In a statement that First Alert 4 got, Hollingsworth said, “At no point did I snoop or inspect the computer further. I did not break into any of the public defender’s databases and did not delete any information that was stored there.” It was funny that I sent an email to a politician under the name of my friend Charlie Argana that I thought was just flirting.
Even though Hollingsworth said he didn’t mean to do what he did, the Missouri State Public Defenders Office didn’t believe him. They asked that 20 of his cases be reassigned because of possible breaches of confidentiality. As a result of the incident, Hollingsworth was also suspended by his office for two days without pay.
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