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An attorney has been indicted after allegedly deleting child sexual abuse images from her client's phone.
Hendersonville police in Tennessee announced that a grand jury has indicted attorney Jocelyn Mims on charges of tampering with evidence, making false reports to an officer and intentionally failing to report child sex abuse.
She is accused of deleting child sexual abuse images for a client who hired her in 2021 and who is now facing several felony charges, according to The Tennessean. Police have not revealed the client's identity.
Mims is being held in the Sumner County jail in Tennessee on an $80,000 bond. She is scheduled to appear in Sumner County Criminal Court on Friday, November 17. Newsweek sought comment on Monday from Mims' attorney via email.
Mims attended Vanderbilt Law School and received her license in 2004.
She was previously disbarred after pleading guilty in 2008 for trying to smuggle drugs to a client in the Gallatin jail in Tennessee. The Tennessee Board of Professional Responsibility, which oversees attorney discipline, invited her to give a response to a disciplinary investigation but she "filed no response and default judgment should be granted," the board noted at the time.
The board ruled that she should be disbarred "following her plea of guilty to conspiracy to introduce contraband into a penal facility and attempted introduction of contraband into a penal facility."
On May 17, 2017, a three-person panel from the Board of Professional Responsibility recommended that Mims be reinstated as an attorney "with conditions." The panel's judgment was considered and approved by the board on June 9, 2017. It said that Mims had "consulted mental health professionals to assist her in addressing long standing issues with her depression" and "she has been receiving regular counseling for her depression. With treatment, her depressive disorder has diminished."
It also said that "through her voluntary participation in programs designed to assist others in meeting the basic demands of daily life, she demonstrated genuine compassion for the needs of the less fortunate."
The panel also accepted that Mims was "forthright in admitting the facts which formed the basis of her disbarment. She accepted full responsibility for her actions. She demonstrated genuine remorse for her actions to medical providers, her friends, her employers, her supervisors, and at the hearing of this cause."
The state Supreme Court then agreed to reinstate her on condition that she "continue with her mental health treatment with quarterly updates submitted to the Board of Professional Responsibility" and that she "provide evidence to the Board of Professional Responsibility of completion of 2016 CLE [Continued Legal Education] requirements."
About the writer
Sean O'Driscoll is a Newsweek Senior Crime and Courts Reporter based in Ireland. His focus is reporting on U.S. law. ... Read more