Dec 10, 2022 4 min read

Fayette County District Attorney Richard Bower Sr. was reprimanded Friday by the state Disciplinary Board for the handling of his son’s drunken driving case last year in which the panel said he “abused (his) power and undermined the public trust” in the justice system.

Bower appeared stoic as he listened to the 5-minute public reprimand through video conferencing while Disciplinary Board Vice Chairman Dion Rassias spoke about the district attorney’s decision to appoint a special prosecutor for his son’s DUI crash case rather than refer the matter to the attorney general’s office.

“Because of your relationship to your son, a conflict of interest prevented you or your office from prosecuting the criminal case against him,” Rassias said.

Richard Bower Jr. was involved in a wrong-way crash Aug. 7, 2021 on Route 119 in Dunbar Township that injured another motorist and destroyed both vehicles. Bower Sr. then appointed Uniontown defense attorney Samuel Davis to handle the case, and two misdemeanor charges of driving under the influence and several citations were filed Sept. 29 when test results showed Bower Jr. had a blood-alcohol level of .172% at the time of the crash. However, Davis withdrew the DUI charges during the preliminary and added a misdemeanor reckless endangerment count that would allow Bower Jr. to go through Accelerated Rehabilitative Disposition to clear his record without having his driver’s license suspended.

Rassias noted that Bower Sr. had referred other cases where he was conflicted to the attorney general’s office, so his decision to appoint Davis was curious. In addition, Davis was representing clients who had active cases in Fayette County that the district attorney’s office was prosecuting, so Bower Sr. still had potential “influence and control” over how Davis handled Bower Jr.’s criminal case.

“After news outlets reported that DUI and other charges against your son were dropped at the preliminary hearing, the OAG, through its spokesperson, publicly stated that by law your son’s case should’ve been referred to their office for prosecution due to the conflict of interest,” Rassias said.

Molly Stieber, a spokesperson for Attorney General Joshua Shapiro, said after the DUI charges were dropped last November that Bower Sr. should have made the referral to them as required by the Commonwealth Attorneys Act.

“By law, this matter should have been referred to our office and not a special prosecutor,” she said at the time.

The attorney general’s office later re-filed the DUI charges, and Bower Jr. agreed to go through the ARD pre-trial diversionary program in May, which he has since completed.

The Disciplinary Board notified Bower Sr. on Sept. 16 of his “professional misconduct” and scheduled the reprimand for Friday.

Rassias said the board determined that Bower Sr. violated rules involving an attorney with a conflict of interest in a case, along with engaging in conduct that is prejudicial to the administration of justice. He added that while Bower Sr. has no other history of discipline since he was admitted to the bar in 1982, this was an especially serious matter because of his role as district attorney.

“We note that as a public official you abused your power and undermined the public trust,” Rassias said

Bower Sr. said little during the reprimand while his personal attorney, Craig Simpson, sat beside him during the virtual meeting. But at the end, Bower Sr. acknowledged the reprimand and told the disciplinary board to “take care” before the broadcast ended.

He was one of five attorneys to be publicly reprimanded by the disciplinary board Friday afternoon. The proceeding was broadcast live on the Disciplinary Board’s channel on YouTube, and the reprimand can be found on the agency’s website.