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Foreign attorneys best when in trouble abroad say St. Louis area

By: Donna Walter
(reprinted from the St. Louis Daily Record & St. Louis Countain (MO), August 29, 2007)

Location. Location. Location.

Those words are just as important in criminal defense work as they are in real estate.

St. Louis area attorneys say it's too risky for them to try to represent clients who've been charged with crimes while traveling in foreign countries. Someone who lives in that country would be better- suited to assist the client, they say.

"A lot of local attorneys would know the right people to talk to, the right hands to grease," said Andrew D. Hale, an associate with the St. Louis criminal defense firm of Rosenblum, Schwartz, Rogers & Glass.

That's advice UMSL student Roxana Contreras could have used as soon as she was detained by customs officials in Voronezh, Russia, and charged with attempting to smuggle medals and coins out of the country.

But the customs officers told Contreras not to contact her consulate and not to hire an attorney, according to Sonya Bahar, Contreras' thesis adviser. Contreras is a Chilean citizen pursuing her doctoral degree in physics.

"She was told that it would make things worse if she contacted her consulate and that the customs officials wanted to 'help her resolve the case without involving the police,'" Bahar said. "Whether this was the moment when they wanted a bribe and she was too decent a human being or too upset to realize that we don't know."

Contreras initially listened to customs officials, thinking if she didn't hire a lawyer her case could be resolved quickly, Bahar said.

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