Pierce Wants State to Pay Lawyer Fees; Maly Tells Him to Shove It

This is one of those, "How-Stupid-Do-You-Think-These-Hard-Working-Iowans Are?, You've-Got-To-Be-Kidding!" stories, written by the Associated Press and carried today by PressCitizen.com:

Former University of Iowa basketball player Pierre Pierce wants the state to pick up part of his defense costs against charges that he assaulted his former girlfriend last winter.

According to a financial affidavit filed in Dallas County District Court, Pierce claims he is living on $170 a month. Pierce, 22, who is unemployed, said he is paying $10 monthly in rent for his Iowa City apartment and does not have any money in checking or savings accounts.

The affidavit is part of a request to have the state pay a portion of his legal bills.

Pierce claimed he spends about $50 for food each month and pays about $60 in utilities, while spending about $50 on transportation expenses, the document shows.

Defense attorney Alfredo Parrish has asked that the state pay for costs associated with defense depositions, subpoenas and expert witnesses in Pierce's criminal case, even though Pierce's family has retained Parrish privately.

Pierce, of Westmont, Ill., is scheduled to stand trial Aug. 16 on two counts of burglary, criminal mischief and assault with intent to commit sexual abuse stemming from a Jan. 27 incident involving his former girlfriend in West Des Moines.

The former Hawkeye guard, who was kicked off the team midseason, has been preparing for the June 28 NBA draft.

In the affidavit, Pierce left several lines blank, answering "No" when asked whether he or anyone else had employed an attorney for him in the case. He didn't provide answers about who has paid for legal services, how much has been paid or about the $30,000 surety bond posted so he could travel to Chicago earlier this month.

Additional documentation was provided to the judge privately spelling out details of Pierce's financial standing, Parrish said Thursday.

Assistant Attorney General A. Patricia Houlihan has said she wants Judge Gregory Hulse to review carefully Pierce's claim of indigence.

"It is obvious that the defendant does have a source of money since he is able to retain private counsel to defend him and presumably to post his bond," Houlihan wrote in a previously filed resistance to the request.

Houlihan's resistance cited what she called an ``unreasonable'' expenditure of funds to retain Parrish and asked that Parrish privately disclose fees paid by Pierce and his family.

[RON MALY'S COMMENTS: Hey, Pierre. Shove this request into an area where it might be physically uncomfortable. I don't know who's dumber--you or your lawyers. You should have thought of the costs involved when you were making all those roundtrips from Iowa City to West Des Moines during the basketball season, and when you were using other peoples' cell phones to make those idiotic calls. You don't deserve a nickel for anything. Welcome to the real world. And, oh, yes, why don't you do us all a favor and get a job? A regular reader and frequent contributor to these columns has already weighed in with some strong opinions on the latest bit of Pierce ridiculousness, going so far as to label him a lazy bum: "You're not kidding when you say this is a 'you've-got-to-be-kidding' story. This goes beyond unbelievable. How could he or his attorney even think of making such an asinine request? Send the creep out to California and I'm sure all charges will be dropped. Of course, he'd want us to pay for his transportation. If the lazy bum is unemployed, where does he get the $170 he's living on?"]

Vol. 4, No. 352
June 17, 2005