The judge, the lawyer and the jilted prostitute

AUSTRALIA - In a land that has no great love of tall poppies, Australians are watching with morbid fascination the death by a thousand cuts of one of their tallest.

Internationally lauded lawyer, humanist and former Federal Court Justice Marcus Einfield is being hewn by his own hand and by the fury of a prostitute scorned by her one-time lover, Einfield's former lawyer.

Einfield stands accused of serial lying to avoid speeding fines, in the process risking his extremely distinguished career and his elevated social status among the nation's elite.

The resulting spotlight has also exposed his two doctorates as mail-order rubbish, and revealed his improper use of the title "Justice" and of the Judges' Chambers in the Federal Court in Sydney as his postal address.

The lawyer, Michael Ryan, a partner in Sydney firm McLellan Lawyers, inadvertently accelerated the process through his affair with one-time legal secretary and prostitute Marie Christos. She found incriminating evidence against Einfield while rummaging at night through Ryan's rubbish bins and handed it to newspapers and the police.

Ryan this week dropped his client in a bid to contain the damage, while Einfield engaged the public relations company CPR to manage his media problems. CPR handled the Beaconsfield mine disaster.

The New South Wales Police, initially slow to pursue serious allegations of perjury against Einfield, have now opened an investigation by the State Crime Command. This opens the prospect of criminal charges and, later, further action by the NSW Bar Association.

The man being brought so low by his determination to avoid a A$77 ($92) traffic fine is one of Australia's true giants - an outspoken humanist named a Living National Treasure in 1997, an Officer of the Order of Australia, and a United Nations Peace Laureate.

The son of a distinguished Jewish immigrant, thrice-married Einfield was a university friend of Prime Minister John Howard despite ideological differences. More recently Einfield's decisions on the bench and his public advocacy of various causes infuriated Howard's Government.

He is a passionate advocate of Aboriginal land rights, a caustic and unrelenting opponent of the detention of illegal migrants - once likening Woomera detention camp guards to the Nazi SS - and a critic of Howard's increasingly harsh anti-terror laws.

Five years ago he dedicated the gay and lesbian memorial in Darlinghurst, Sydney.

This year he was appointed chairman of the inquiry into the April riots in the Solomons, he has been a member of the International Advisory Council of the Alternative Dispute Resolution Institute, and he is a former Judge of the Eastern Caribbean Supreme Court.

Einfield has been a visiting professor at York University in Toronto, Canada, and Phoenix University in the United States.

In Australia he sat for 15 years on the bench of the Federal Court and was an Additional Judge of the Australian Capital Territory Supreme Court.

His list of present and former affiliations and positions is stellar: special representative of the UN International Children's Emergency Fund, Austcare's ambassador for refugees, Australian vice-president of the International Commission of Jurists, and foundation president of the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission.

He was the inaugural president of the Australian Paralympic Federation and a director of Sydney's 2000 Olympics bid.

But on January 8 this year, it all began to unravel.

A speed camera clocked his car travelling at 60km/h in a 50km/h zone in Macpherson St in the Sydney suburb of Mosman. The penalty was A$77 and three demerit points in his licence.

Instead of paying, Einfield went to Downing Centre Local Court. On August 7 he told the court that on the date of the offence his car had been driven by an American friend, Florida academic Teresa Brennan. The court dismissed the charge.

But enterprising News Ltd reporters were not so easily satisfied. They discovered Brennan had been dead for three years and confronted Einfield. It was not that Brennan, he said, but another, and she too had died after returning to the US.

The following day prosecutors were instructed to confirm the evidence Einfield had given to the court, but said the former judge would not be questioned.

In the ensuing outcry, New South Wales Police Minister Carl Scully instructed the State Crime Command to investigate.

From there, things went from bad to worse as News Ltd papers and the Sydney Morning Herald followed an increasingly strong scent.

Then they discovered the embarrassing truth about Einfield's doctorates. His Who's Who entry notes he was educated at Sydney University, and Century and Pacific Western Universities in the US.

He includes PhDs earned at each of the American institutions.

Both Century and Pacific Western thrive on mail-order degrees.

Pacific Western was named as a "degree mill" in a Congressional investigation by the General Accounting Office into the unauthorised use of federal funds by Government employees to gain sham degrees.

The GAO defined degree mills as "non-traditional, unaccredited, post-secondary schools that offer degrees for a relatively low flat fee, promote the award of academic credits based on life experience and do not require any classroom instruction". Pacific Western charged US$2295 ($3619) for a Bachelor of Science, US$2305 for a Master of Business Administration and US$2595 for a PhD.

And then came Marie Christos, who took her story to the newspapers - and a bag full of evidence to the police.

Christos claims she began a six-year relationship with Einfield's lawyer Ryan, when the two met in a brothel. She told the Herald Sun they called each other Scarlett and Rhett, after the lead characters in the movie Gone With The Wind.

During their time together Ryan allegedly paid up to A$500 for sex. But recently the pair split. Furious, and certain Ryan was having an affair with another woman, Christos began trawling through his wheelie bin at nights looking for evidence of his duplicity.

Instead, she found incriminating draft statements relating to Einfield's court case. These are now being examined by the police.

And if that is not enough, the Herald Sun discovered that, while still a judge, Einfield had used the same excuse of another person driving his car to avoid two previous speeding fines.

In two statutory declarations he named an Australian woman living in the US as the driver responsible.

Reporter Russell Robinson rang the un-named woman to confirm Einfield's claim. She replied: "I have no idea what you're talking about."

Asked if she knew Einfield she said: "I know the name."

Einfield said in a statement he had given police a comprehensive dossier that would establish he had not been driving his car when it was caught by a speed camera this year

He said he was confident his name would be cleared: "I can only say that I reject any inference of wrongdoing."

The case, as the saying goes, continues.