Philly lawyer who paid for underage sex disbarred

Philly lawyer who paid for underage sex disbarred

The Philadelphia lawyer who pleaded guilty to paying for sex with a 14-year-old trafficking victim in his Center City office has formally been disbarred.

Brian P. Meehan, 59, of Berwyn, Pa., was formally disbarred as of Feb. 22, retroactive to Nov. 6, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court has announced. Meehan also submitted a statement of resignation to the court.

Meehan is currently serving a two-to-four-year sentence with eight years probation after pleading guilty to statutory sexual assault and related charges for paying to have sex with a 14-year-old female human trafficking victim inside his office at One Penn Center. Out of dozens of men she was forced to have sex with, the victim only could identify Meehan.

The victim, a Germantown native, was trafficked to Camden and Georgia before being arrested on theft charges and then interviewed by federal investigators about her history of abuse, according to the Philly DA’s office.

The victim was only able to identify Meehan out of dozens of men she had sex with, a grand jury presentment from the Philadelphia DA’s office said, because she remembered his name being on the door of his office at his former firm, Bishop, Dorfman, Lazaroff & Meehan, and because he referred to himself by his last name.

Investigators searched Meehan’s office in October 2014 after interviewing the victim. DNA tests were positive for Meehan’s sperm on his office couch and rug, where the victim said forced vaginal and oral sex took place, prosecutors said.

The victim also said Meehan forced her to have sex in the 12th-floor conference room, and bragged to her about his penchant for underage girls, telling her “he liked younger girls” and that the youngest girl he ever had sex with was 12, according to the grand jury presentment.

Meehan was fired from his firm, surrendered to authorities and in November pleaded guilty to involuntary deviate intercourse, statutory sexual assault, promoting prostitution of a minor, and corrupting the morals of a minor. He will be registered as a sex offender.

Prosecutors said the victim was trafficked by Shante Fenning and Robert Harris, who allegedly knew the victim, kidnapped her after school and forced her to have sex with around 20 men a week out of a home at Germantown and Harvey street, just blocks from where she lived, even as her family reported her missing to police.

Meehan, a criminal defense and personal injury attorney, reportedly knew the couple after representing them in an unrelated case. Fenning got six to 12 years in prison and 10 years probation. Harris got 14 to 28 years incarceration and eight years of probation.