DOYLE MURPHY
Attorney Albert Watkins speaks to reporters in 2017 following ex-St. Louis police Office Jason Stockley's acquittal.
New details have emerged in a lawsuit filed in federal court earlier this month against local attorney Albert Watkins.
Former client Paul Henreid, a graduate of Washington University’s School of Law is suing Watkins for malpractice and negligence. Henreid says in his suit that in 2018 he instructed Watkins to "fly below their radar” as Watkins worked to have an invasion of privacy conviction expunged from Henreid’s record. Instead, Watkins went on a "media blitz," generating significant press coverage and defeating the purpose of the expungement, according to Henreid.
The invasion of privacy conviction stemmed from the late 1990s when Henreid — whose legal name was then Paul Henroid — filmed himself having sex with numerous women without their knowledge. At the time, Henroid was working as a stripper under the name Geno, and he referred to the camera hidden inside his bedroom's alarm clock as the "Geno-cam." One of the women caught wind of the recordings and reported Henroid to the authorities.
One of Henroid's victims was 17 when he filmed her, resulting in a slew of more serious charges. He hired defense attorney Scott Rosenblum and pleaded guilty to the invasion of privacy charge in exchange for the other charges being dropped. In addition to a two-year suspended sentence and five years probation, Henroid spent 30 nights in jail and had to perform 250 hours of community service.
A copy of an email obtained by the Riverfront Times shows that Henreid, who had changed his name and become a lawyer in California, contacted Watkins and his partner Michael Schwade on January 10, 2018, saying that he was planning to run to be a judge in Los Angeles County Superior Court in "a sneak attack campaign on an incumbent."
"I do not think my judicial campaign should be mentioned in the initial Petition [for expungement] because one of the femi-Nazis in the circuit attorney's office may go ballistic," Henreid wrote. "I believe the better strategy is to fly below their radar. It has been over twenty years, but hell hath no fury like a woman scorned."
When asked why he would engage the famously not-media shy Watkins as legal counsel on such a sensitive matter, Henreid tells the RFT he "didn't know how bad his reputation [was] about the whole press thing."
The following month, Watkins inserted Henreid into the turmoil surrounding then-governor Eric Greitens, who was being investigated for invasion of privacy charges for allegedly taking a nude photo of a woman without her consent. In February 2018, Watkins issued a press release about the case and gave interviews, including to the Post-Dispatch, saying that it would be hypocritical for Greitens not to pardon Henreid as Greitens sought to have his own charges dismissed.
“What’s good for the governor should be good for the gander,” Watkins told the Post-Dispatch.
National outlets such as the Washington Post and CBS News picked up the story as well.
Henreid says at the time, he felt blindsided. “It makes no sense," he remembers thinking.
Watkins however insists that Henreid was well-aware he'd be entering into a high-profile fray. He stresses that the "below their radar" phrase referred to expungement efforts in St. Louis circuit court, not to the efforts to win a pardon from the governor.
Three days after the Post-Dispatch article, an upset Henreid sent Watkins an email asking him to stop work on the expungement petition. "The Post Dispatch article from this past week does the opposite of my express goal of flying below the radar," Henreid wrote to Watkins, who Henreid refers to later in the email as Judas. "Now every Circuit Attorney (and possible Judges) will be on high alert."
The story's internet presence was so great, he wrote, that he might have to change his name again, this time to "Smith, Jones or Johnson." Plus, the governor denied the pardon.
However, in May that same year, Henreid again emailed Watkins, seemingly still eager to work with him on the expungement. In this email, Henreid referenced Sun Tzu's Art of War saying that "the best General wins without fighting" and therefore he and Watkins should not ask for a hearing in the expungement case. Instead they should hope that the court rules sua sponte, meaning on its own accord, given that the circuit attorney had not filed an objection to the petition for expungement.
Henreid eventually did get his expungement in November 2018.
Henreid's lawsuit in federal court is similar to a 2019 complaint he filed against Watkins with the Missouri Supreme Court Office of Chief Disciplinary Counsel, an agency responsible for handling alleged misconduct by lawyers in the state. In September 2020 the counsel closed the complaint without discipline.
In a lengthy August 2019 email from Watkins to Alan Pratzel, a St. Louis attorney who serves as Missouri's chief disciplinary counsel, Watkins says that Henreid sought to pay Watkins' firm from the coffers of his campaign for judge, a move Watkins says he strongly advised against. He added that Henreid has "emOr braced" Sun Tzu's Art of War "as a life guide."
Henreid never became a judge. He tells the RFT the results of Google searches of his name prevent him from taking on clients as an attorney, and he makes his living flipping houses.
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