User:FieldsSam/sandbox/Norm Pattis

Norm Pattis is an American criminal defense lawyer.

Early Life and Education
Born in Chicago in 1955 to a French-Canadian mother and a Greek father, Pattis grew up in Detroit, Michigan, moving constantly. His father abandoned his family when Pattis was 6 or 7 after shooting a man in Chicago. Pattis and his mother moved constantly, living in an unfinished attic at one point.

Pattis obtained an undergraduate degree in political science from Purdue University. He then entered Columbia University's philosophy program where he completed the coursework for a PH.D. in political philosophy, but not his dissertation.

In the 1980s, Pattis left his teaching position at Columbia University, and he began writing editorials for the Waterbury Republican-American and Hartford Courant newspapers. . During this time, he also served as a lobbyist to the Connecticut legislature on behalf of the Connecticut Hospital Association. Pattis then worked on Joel Schiavone's campaign for governor of Connecticut.

While working these jobs, Pattis began attending the University of Connecticut School of Law at night. He became a full time day student in his last year, and obtained his law degree in 1993.

Legal Career
Pattis began his legal career in 1993 with John R. Williams, a New Haven, Connecticut civil rights attorney. He later started his own firm.

He achieved early notoriety in 1999 by winning a $2.1 million verdict for convicted child rapist and murderer, Kevin King, in a federal civil rights suit against the Connecticut Department of Correction. Days before his sentencing in 1996 for brutally raping and murdering 15-year-old Patricia Urbanski in front of her two-year-old sister, King attempted to escape from prison by beating and stabbing a female prison guard before donning her clothes and fleeing. When they caught him during his escape attempt, corrections officers took turns beating him in retaliation.

In 2003, Pattis secured an acquittal for a New Haven pastor, Walter Oliver, who was caharged with assault after he administered a "Holy Spanking" to the child of two parishioners with their permission.

In 2012, Pattis represented Anna Gristina, New York City's "Soccer Mom Madam," who eventually pled guilty to one count of promoting prosecution. Gristina and several of her call girls claimed that her clients included some of the most wealthy and famous people in American society, including actor Charlie Sheen, and former Senator John Edwards,

Pattis and his law firm secured, in 2018, the acquittal of Saifullah Khan, a former Yale University neuroscience student who was accused of raping a fellow student on Halloween night 2015. Despite the trial taking two weeks, the jury returned Khan's acquittal in about three hours. Pattis drew significant criticism for his defense of Khan, which was interspersed with harsh criticisms of the #MeToo movement and focused heavily on the alleged victim's flirtations with Khan, her drinking on the night of the alleged rape, and her seductive cat costume.

Since 2019, Pattis has defended conspiracy theorist, Alex Jones, in a defamation lawsuit brought by six families of victims in Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting as well as six FBI agents who responded to the shooting.

In March 2020, Pattis filed a motion to intervene in Roger Stone's criminal case on behalf of social media personality, Mike Cernovich, who wants to investigate whether the jury that convicted stone was biased.

Representation of Fotis Dulos
Pattis represented Fotis Dulos accused of murder in the disappearance of Jennifer Dulos in 2019-2020. With Connecticut and federal law enforcement officials unable to find Dulos' ex-wife's body and hesitant to charge Dulos and his girlfriend, Michelle Troconis, with murder, Pattis waged a public defense of Dulos in the media against charges that he tampered with evidence in connection with Jennifer Dulos' disappearance. He proposed a number of theories for her disappearance including that Jennifer Dulos was critically ill and either arranged her own disappearance or committed suicide in such a manner as to frame Fotis Dulos for her murder and deprive him of ever seeing their five children again.

Pattis' public defense of Dulos caused the Connecticut judge overseeing Dulos' criminal case to issue a gag order forbidding Pattis or Dulos from commenting on the case to anyone. Pattis subsequently challenged the constitutionality of the gag order as a violation of Dulos' free speech rights. After Dulos committed suicide in January 2020, the Connecticut Supreme Court dismissed Pattis' challenge to the gag order's constitutionality as moot.

When Dulos was arrested for a third time and charged with murder and kidnapping on January 7, 2020, Pattis defiantly told the media that he'd "be stunned if the state could obtain a conviction," characterizing Connecticut's case as a "circumstantial whodunit, [with holes] [sic] large enough to drive a truck through."

On January 28, 2020, Dulos attempted suicide before he was due to appear at an emergency bond hearing. He subsequently died from the attempt on January 30, 2020. In a motion that he filed shortly after Dulos' death, Pattis and his partner, Kevin Smith, referenced Dulos' suicide note professing his innocence and confirmed that they had evidence to prove his innocence. Pattis also professed that he was utterly shocked by Dulos' suicide.

After Dulos' suicide, Pattis unsuccessfully sought to have him tried posthumously to clear his name, arguing that he unfairly "was tried and convicted in the court of public opinion"

At the court hearing on his motion to have Dulos posthumously tried for murder, Pattis told the judge that Dulos was innocent of murder. He claimed that someone, personally known to Dulos, dropped Jennifer Dulos' bloody clothes on Fotis Dulos' doorstep and that Dulos had only thrown away the evidence. Pattis claims to know the identity of Jennifer Dulos' true killer and insists that it is not Fotis Dulos, Michelle Troconis, or Kent Mawhinney, but he has not disclosed it. He, however, did claim that that everyone in the case knew the person who he claims killed Jennifer Dulos.

Works
2011, Taking Back the Courts: What We Can Do to Reclaim Our Sovereignty, ISBN-13: 978-0981988856

2013, Juries And Justice: Saving a System Under Fire, ISBN-13: 978-0984952533

2014, In The Trenches, ISBN-13: 978-0984952571