Caltrans Holds Job Open for Lawyer in Prison
The state Department of Transportation is holding a job open for a Caltrans attorney currently serving a federal prison term for his part in a San Diego drug ring, an agency spokesman said Wednesday.
The spokesman, Chuck Mastin, said no special treatment is being accorded Caltrans attorney Douglas Brown, who exercised his right to a leave of absence “due to personal reasons” in May before starting his prison term in the Metropolitan Corrections Center in San Diego.
Mastin said Brown expects to be freed by the time his leave expires Feb. 17. The state will then be required to give him back his job handling civil suits for Caltrans unless the State Bar lifts his license to practice law, the spokesman said.
“We’re not going out of our way or bending over backward to help a felon. We’re just following the rules,” Mastin said. “He was legally entitled to a leave of absence.”
Brown was arrested in December, 1982, when more than 100 federal agents swept across San Diego and arrested nearly a dozen suspected members of an alleged cocaine ring known as “the corporation.”
He was convicted of two felony counts of using a telephone to further a narcotics transaction.
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