PORT ANGELES — A state defense lawyers group will conduct an inquiry into a recent police search of a Port Angeles attorney’s office connected to a case against the attorney’s client.
Attorney Lane Wolfley on Saturday called the search by Olympic Peninsula Narcotics Enforcement Team agents “bizarre” and said he has contacted the Washington Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers to investigate.
Wolfley was representing Paul “P.I.” Pendergrass, 51, who is facing money laundering and drug-related charges in Clallam County Superior Court, when OPNET agents served a criminal search warrant at his office at the end of the business day Feb. 10.
He said officers were looking for a check for $1,800 written to Pendergrass, a Realtor, as part of regular payments by a husband and wife for a home loan obtained from Bernard “Pete” Barnes, 50, with Pendergrass acting as escrow.
Barnes is charged in Superior Court with cocaine delivery and possession, and investigators allege he is the ringleader of a cocaine network in which Pendergrass and nine others have been arrested.
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The rest of the story appears in the Sunday Peninsula Daily News.