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June 24, 2010

Attorney disbarred following conviction

— From staff reports

Athens attorney John Hamilton McLain V, 51, has been disbarred from practicing law in Alabama following his conviction last year of sexually abusing two girls, ages 12 and 13, in 2008.

McLain previously was a certified public accountant and later practiced law in downtown Athens.

The disbarment order from the Supreme Court of Alabama, based on a ruling from the Disciplinary Commission of the Alabama State Bar, was sent Thursday to The News Courier to be published as a paid legal notice. It states the disbarment was effective May 27.

McLain was convicted Feb. 12, 2009, and later sentenced in Madison County Circuit Court on two counts of enticing a child, two counts of second-degree sexual abuse and two counts of second-degree unlawful imprisonment.

Lawyers with the Attorney General’s Office presented evidence during a four-day trial in February 2009 showing McLain picked up the girls as they were walking to the Madison Square Mall without their parents’ knowledge on the night of July 3, 2008. He drove them around Huntsville in his sports car and then to Monte Sano Mountain, where he traced the ring connecting the cups of one girl’s swimsuit, the girls testified. He then drove them to his house in Athens, kept them overnight, touched the breast of one girl, invited the two to join him in the shower and to sleep in his bed, then walked nude in front of them, the girls testified.

The State Supreme Court upheld the conviction in March.

Madison County Circuit Judge Jim Smith sentenced McLain to a total of 20 years on two felony counts, one for each victim. The judge split the sentences so McLain would have to serve a total of six years in prison followed by 14 years on probation. He also was sentenced to a year and three months on misdemeanor counts involving the two children. The sentences on the misdemeanor counts run at the same time as the 20-year felony sentence.

McLain is serving the sentence in Kilby Correctional Facility in Montgomery.

 

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