Lawyer of the Day: Tampa Attorney Fails To Get Ahead

Attorney Kevin Napper got busted in a Tampa prostitution sting. It wasn’t a Spitzer-esque high-end call girl thing. Instead Napper tried to solicit a $40 blow job (from an undercover police officer) in a local red-light district. Classy.

Surely Napper could have afforded higher-end services. He rolled up to the undercover officer rocking a gold Mercedes E500.

Still, Napper did manage to buy himself a motherload of hypocrisy for his forty bucks. Napper is married to Hillsborough County Circuit Judge Katherine Gail Essrig. She must be so proud.

Maybe Napper’s wife could have seen this coming. Napper received his J.D. from the University of North Dakota. But in a deliciously cheap twist of fate, he received his B.A. from Moorhead State.

Napper’s excuse after the jump.

When reached for comment about his aborted attempt to get his freak on, Napper had a witty answer:

Sponsored

“I made a simple mistake,” Napper told police upon his arrest.

Given Napper’s resume, you’d think he would know better than to make such “simple” criminal errors:

He specializes in white-collar criminal defense, governmental investigations and internal investigations, according to his profile on his Carlton Fields law firm’s Web site. He is the president-elect of the Tampa Bay chapter of the Federal Bar Association, according to the group’s Web site.

But, according to a tipster, Carlton Fields is not a hotbed of criminal law knowledge:

[H]is firm has always disdained criminal defense and only about 10 years ago opened up this practice group dealing with white collar criminal defense, government investigations, and internal investigations.

Sponsored

We bet they’ll take criminal defense a lot more seriously now.

Lawyer arrested in Tampa prostitution sting [St. Petersburg Times]
Kevin Napper [Carlton Fields]