Top Latham Lawyer Resigns Over Sexting
If you are like William Voge, it's time to clean up your email and text messages.
(Wait a second. My name is William Vogeler. Excuse me a moment while I clean up my email and text messages.)
Voge, chairman at Latham & Watkins, got caught in a sexting scandal. It's a lesson of biblical proportions about how a phone and bad decisions can destroy you.
The Lawyer's Bathsheba
While on a business trip, Voge contacted a woman on behalf of a Christian group to help resolve an issue she had with the New Canaan Society. Her name was Andrea Vassell, and she became his Bathsheba.
In ancient Israel, King David met his doom when he summoned Bathsheba for an affair. She conceived; he murdered her husband, and the rest is history.
Voge, named "One of America's Most Powerful Lawyers" by the Wall Street Journal, didn't kill anybody -- unless you count his career. It happened in November over two nights of texting.
Alone in his hotel room, he was texting Vassell about her accusation that an official of the Christian group paid to have sex with her. The texts turned flirtatious, then sexual, then angry.
'Abuse and Exploit'
Voge never met the woman, but she let everybody know about their sexting. That included his law firm, his wife, the Chrisitan group, and journalists.
The firm stood by him, until he texted Vassell's husband about going to jail. Voge also texted Vassell an apology, but it was too late.
"You are insane if you think I am not coming after you with everything I have," she replied. "Men abuse and exploit women and then the church that is dominated by male elders steps forward and tells the women to forgive."
She ended the communication with a quote, but it definitely was not from the Bible.
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